Blessings In Disguise
by CherryDrug
Summary: I wasn't somebody important that died from a tragic yet all too coincidental accident, with no family to bury me and no friends to mourn my passing; whereas she had been unexpectedly born into a family that still welcomed her with open arms, and grew up with a supposedly fictional main character for an elder twin brother. Dear God, why mix us together? SI!OC-as-Sena's-twin.
1. Chapter 1

**Blessings in Disguise**

 **Written by:** ** _CherryDrug_**

 **Disclaimer** **:** _"I am not the liable owner of the series or franchise of one Eyeshield 21. I do not own it's original plot, it's characters, the public figures, events, places and etcetera. I do, however, own the plot of this story, as well as my OC, one Kobayakawa Kanami. Arigatou for not suing me :)."_

 **Rating** _: This'll be a T-rated fan fiction, so those who're expecting sex or mature themes, please wait for a while ahaha. I'm not yet ready to corrupt my virgin mind with lemons or erotic stories just so that I could please all you perverts, ehehe ;)_

 **Genre** _: Family, Friendship, Adventure, Drama, a spice of Humor, and Romance some time down the road :)_

 **Characters** _: Erm...there'll be a lot in the future, but for now, Kobayakawa Kanami will be our main character for this story of ours :)_

 **Summary:** I wasn't somebody important that died from a tragic yet all too coincidental accident, with no family to bury me and no friends to mourn my passing; whereas she had been unexpectedly born into a family that still welcomed her with open arms, grew up with a supposedly fictional main character for an elder twin brother. Dear God, why mix us together? SI!OC-as-Sena's-twin.

 **Pairings** _: Guys, I'mma do the most impossible shit that one has could ever do. I'mma make this a Self-Insert!OC/Multiple Well, I guess I'm following in Choco's footsteps, what with writing a reverse harem fan fic, but goddamn it do I wanna try it xD It looks fun._

 **AN:** _Ok, I guess this is where I have to take in a deep breath and begin one hell of a speech. Hi guys! My username's EriDrug, and my co-author is Choco who's too busy with RL to continue her story, Step by Step. I'm always worried about her story, since she's lost some of her inspiration what with teenage drama, homeworks, and them lessons from hell, ne? This is my first Eyeshield 21 fan fiction, and I have one thing to tell you all._

 _Don't go easy on me._

 _I like hearing the opinions of others, to hear them criticizing my work, to hear what I could to make this story a better one_ — _however, I will NOT tolerate flames AKA those reviews that are TOO opinionated and from readers who can't get their arrogant heads out of their flat, crappy asses that don't know when to just STOP, take a breather, see the good parts of a story as well, and give the author a chance because us writers are REALLY trying. We're really, really trying to make the readers happy, when in the first place, us writers are just writing to vent out our stress. So, to those who plan on nonsensically flaming me, go fuck yourselves ya assholes. However, to those who have a harsh review, please, please tell me what I did wrong without cursing the fuck outta me like most dicks would. I've dealt with flamers before, one even made Choco cry so hard, and I know how to treat you._

 _Like. You're. Nothing. Like you're garbage, like you're trash, like you're the shittiest scum of this planet. Like you don't even exist. You're just air. You're NOTHING._

 _But, again, to those who have a review that's pretty harsh and criticizing :) I don't bite, however please leave a note for your reasons, and I'll PM you to ask what I did wrong. I give chances, unlike FLAMERS, and I don't care if I lose favorites or follows because of these words_ — _all I'm doing is standing up for myself, because I'm a writer, and I'm not just speaking for my rights, but for the rites of all writers. To flamers, if you have nothing good to say without a reasonable explanation or apology, you can go fuck yourselves off._

 _Anyways, to those who are just looking for a good story to read, carry on :) I hope this'll be good enough to satisfy your satisfaction buds ehehe._

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

* * *

Her name hadn't always been Kobayakawa Kanami. She hadn't always been a small, newborn baby with chubby cheeks and eyes the brightest shade of green. Her parents hadn't always been Kobayakawa Shuuma and Mihae, an asian couple that had been blessed into their fifth year of marriage. And, most notably, she most _definitely_ hadn't always had an older, twin brother who went by the name of Kobayakawa Sena and had the same wide, but dark brown, eyes as she—or 'Kanami' did.

No. Kobayakawa Kanami hadn't always been who she had been born as. In fact, this wasn't even her first shot at life. Her name hadn't always been Kobayakawa Kanami, nor were her eyes a bright shade of green and hair a dark shade of brown, and she wasn't even sure of what her heritage had been before her second shot at life.

Because Kobayakawa Kanami—the small, newborn baby with chubby cheeks, eyes the brightest shade of green, a small patch of hair on her head a dark brown hue, and asian blood coursing through her tiny veins—had once been Amelia Smith, the girl whose hair was as dark as night, whose eyes could have been the darkest shade of green that it could easily be mistaken as black, and who didn't have a single clue of what her lineage was.

When the two lives were compared, the differences were astounding. Whereas Kobayakawa Kanami had two loving parents who doted upon her, Amelia Smith was an orphan who had long lost hope of being adopted before she turned 'legal.' Whereas Kobayakawa Kanami had an older twin brother who clung to her whether they were sleeping or not, Amelia had several foster siblings whom she hid from since those who were older or younger than her preferred to bully her for her 'abnormality' of reading manga and books instead of prepping herself up like most girls her would age would.

Kobayakawa Kanami and Amelia Smith were both girls. One was a baby, and the other a young lady. One who had just been born from a mother whose tired yet relieved eyes stared lovingly at her once she was handed over, and the other having just died from an accident with the horrified eyes of strangers and passerbys staring at her as she bled to death on the concrete ground.

The two were complete opposites, living completely different lives and in completely different dimensions. One would never connect that the two were one and the same, unless one was the supernatural and omnipotent being who had shoved the soul of one Amelia Smith who was physically dying into the body of one Kobayakawa Kanami who was spiritually dying.

And thus, started the brand new life of Amelia Smith as one Kobayakawa Kanami.

* * *

Mihae knew, from the moment her water had bursted and the liquid had flowed down her inner thighs several weeks too early from the expected week, that today would be a most tiring and painful one. On the late afternoon of October 17, Mihae had been rushed to the hospital after she had to slap her husband out of his 'ostrich mode' which involved him ducking his head underneath one of the many pillows of the plush couch in their living room. The nurses had been kind and helpful enough to bring her into one of delivery rooms of the hospital they had, where her midwife waited for her with a comforting smile.

Mihae didn't feel comforted one bit—especially when a too early contraction had hit and the pain had immediately washed over her nerves that made her knees tremble and a painful whimper escape her mouth.

They had immediately laid her down on the only bed in the room, hooked her ankles on the stirrups. And, when the OB/GYN had _finally_ entered the room, the anesthesia had been administered into her to help relieve the excruciating amount of pain that she would feel once she started pushing.

After a couple more minutes, with her husband's hand tightly restrained in her powerful grip, and the support and help of her midwife and the other nurses that would help in the delivery, the OB/GYN had given her the ok and she had began pushing.

And then, after ten hours of waiting, pushing, excruciating pain, Mihae's screams, and Shuuma's whimpers—a, surprisingly, healthy baby boy had been born, his wails piercing through the silence and filling the once cold room with warm relief with his cries. The little baby boy had first had his umbilical cord cut, cleaned and checked by the nurses, then handed over to the mother so that the two, newly-fledged parents would adoringly admire their bundle of joy.

"Mr. and Mrs. Kobayakawa, what would you like to name your child?" One of the nurses asked as the OB/GYN cleaned up the mess that the delivering of the baby had created.

Mihae and Shuuma reluctantly moved their gazes away from the drowsy baby boy that weighed 5.4 pounds—which, according to the OB/GYN, seemed odd, considering how large the swell of Mihae's stomach had been—and locked gazes, the married couple that had been blessed with life staring into the dark brown orbs of the other.

A silent message passed between the unworldly connection that these two had with one another since the moment of their unity as husband and wife, and Kobayakawa Shuuma turned to face the nurse, a happy smile curling his lips and twisting his pale features.

"Sena," the twenty seven year old father answered, his dark eyes twinkling with joy and delight. "His name will be Sena. Kobayakawa Sena," he affirmed.

Mihae smiled sweetly, her sweaty and tired face practically glowing with the effects of delivering her first child. "Named after the thunderbolt of Indra, a God of Hinduism, the religion that my parents worshipped when we were back in India," she elaborated to the confused nurse, who had heard of that name for the very first time and recognizing how unusual it was for a Japanese name. "It translates to dart, or to dash, in Sanskrit. But in Katakana, it means distinguished society," she said, pausing for a moment when she felt a wave of sharp pain wash over her, making her wince and wonder if this was merely one of the many after effects of delivering a baby. "And I'm sure that my Sena will help others just like—"

"Excuse me, Mr. and Mrs. Kobayakawa, but I'm afraid that I'll have to cut this touching moment of yours and tell you that Sena isn't the only baby coming out today," the OB/GYN interrupted their conversation, wearing a rather tired and weary expression on his face as he informed the stunned couple of the unexpected news.

"HUH?!" The two, newly-fledged parents exclaimed as one—Shuuma's glasses skewing downwards to emphasize his wide, bulging eyes that looked as if they could pop out of their respective sockets if they could get any larger. "Another baby?!" Mihae screeched, sounding confused and surprised and fearful at the same time. "What do you mean?!" Shuuma immediately demanded, looking insane and as surprised as his wife.

"I'm saying," the doctor drawled, looking away for a moment to roll his eyes in an exasperated manner. "That Mrs. Kobayakawa is correct. You _are_ having another baby," he bluntly deadpanned, just as Mihae whimpered as a particular strong contraction pulsed from her lower regions.

"Mr. Kobayakawa, sir," one of the female nurses piped up, putting on a fresh pair of elastic gloves since the last one had been bloodied up by the earlier birth. "Could you please take the baby from you wife? He might hinder her concentration in giving birth to the other baby," she instructed, and watched with a careful eye as Shuuma did as requested. "Thank you," she said with a pleased smile, before scurrying off to prepare a fresh batch of towels and another basin of water that would be used to clean the new, hopefully lively, baby. Twins were rare, and even rarer for both babies to be born healthy what with their below average sizes and weight, since they had to properly distribute and share the nutrients within their mother's fetus as they grew within it over the course of nine months. The nurse hoped that the second baby would come out healthy and fine, just like its older brother.

"Mrs. Kobayakawa," the OB/GYN said, poking out from between the aforementioned woman's legs. "You'll need to be ready to push in a few minutes, just wait until I give the signal," he said, before disappearing underneath Mihae's raised hospital gown.

Cradling his oldest and only son in one arm and against his chest, Shuuma placed his hand in his wife's hand, pressing his lips together and clearing his throat to mask the whimper that fought to escape and make its presence known to the others in the room when his lovely Mihae gripped it tightly. He had lost most of his pride a few hours ago, and he needed to protect what little dignity he had left within him after whimpering and pleading to his wife to let his hand go. No, Shuuma would be brave and let his wife hold his hand once again as she delivered _another_ baby—another baby that was unmistakenably theirs, and the twin to the fussing baby in his cradle. Another baby that they would have to nurture, take care of, and love with all their heart.

Shuuma was ecstatic with the news of another baby, momentarily forgetting about the extra expenses that they'd have to spend since they would have _two_ babies instead of the expected one, but that didn't matter right now. His wife needed help, and Shuuma was going to give her all the help that he could give to her by now—by holding her hand and whispering encouraging words to her ear, just like what he'd done as she'd delivered Sena, with the addition of all the additional whimpers and yelps of the pain of what felt like his bones creaking underneath the strength of his wife's strength.

"You'll do great, honey," Shuuma consoled, smiling comfortingly at her despite the furrow in between his eyebrows which displayed his pain. "Just like with our Sena. I know you can do it, honey, I'll be here to help you," he murmured.

"I hate you _so_ much," was Mihae's ever so loving reply with a grit of her teeth as she resisted the urge to start pushing the new and completely unexpected baby out of her fetus and just get things over and done with. "When I'm done with this fucking shit, I swear I'll rip your goddamn head off and shove it up so far up your ass so that you'll the know the pain of a woman giving birth— _a hundred times!_ " She shrieked loudly at the end when she felt a particularly powerful contraction. She groaned painfully, her shoulder slumping down as she breathed in deeply, remembering those breathing exercises she and her husband took to calm her down and lessen the pain when delivering.

"Whatever you want, honey," Shuuma agreed, knowing that his wife wouldn't _really_ do such a thing to him. After all, who would be supporting both her and kids?...Right?

After eight more hours of painful contractions, the midwife telling Mihae to push after every paush she had to endure through, Shuuma's twitchy smiles that looked more like grimaces, and Mihae swearing to castrate her husband after all of this was over—the second baby had finally been born. The little one had cried loudly, but compared to its older twin, its cries had only lasted for a few minutes. The new baby was then handed over to a nurse for cleaning right after it's umbilical cord had been cut off; after the nurse had cleaned the new, softly whimpering, baby, she wrapped a towel around the little one and handed the baby to the tired and panting mother, as it was appropriate for the mother to hold their baby first before anybody else.

Mihae graciously accepted her baby, cradling the little one in her arms, noticing by touch that this one was much smaller than Sena. With tired, brown eyes, the new mother of two looked down, and her once slanted orbs immediately widened in surprise as her jaw slackened at the sight of a pink blanket wrapped around the baby in her care.

"A...girl?" She said, sounding breathless. "It's...a girl?" She stated again, thoughts whirling about in her head as she tried to comprehend the situation that she had apparently landed herself into. When she'd been brought to the delivery room, Mihae had thought that she would only be giving birth to _one baby_ , to only a _son_ —but, to her most pleasant surprise, she'd given birth to _two_. A boy and a girl.

She'd given birth to a girl. Just like she'd originally hoped for. And she had a son as well, just as Shuuma wanted. And both were well and healthy, though they were below the average weight, but that was to be expected since they were twins, as the nurse had hastily explained once she'd seen the panicked and worried expression on Mihae's face.

"Shuu-kun," she said, her brown eyes tearing up, and she ripped her gaze from the baby— _her daughter. Her beautiful,_ _ **gorgeous**_ _daughter_ —to look up at her husband, who had a gobsmacked expression written on his face. "It's a girl!" She exclaimed, beaming brightly, as she showed their baby girl, her brown eyes twinkling in delight. " We have a baby girl!" She continued in a much louder voice, snapping her husband out of his dazed reverie.

"I...can see that," Shuuma said intelligently, his dark brown eyes still looking clouded as he tried to process the information of having a baby _girl_. It wasn't as if it was a bad thing—girl or boy, Shuuma would accept his new child, or children, as he had twins now, instead of the one he and his wife had originally expected. It was just that, considering his wife's expenses on clothes and shoes, much less the _many_ ingredients she bought to make food, his mind was already screaming at him to bolt out of the hospital room with Sena in his clutches to escape the inevitable future of money flowing out of the window. "That's great, honey," he said, his lips stretching into a wide, genuine smile, because despite the unease he felt for what he'd soon expect from his credit card bills, Shuuma was really proud and happy that they had a daughter. Mihae had seemed a little bit sad that they would be having a son that she couldn't dress up or relate to once their boy had reached puberty.

"Mr. and Mrs. Kobayakawa, what would you like to name your daughter?"

"I—" Mihae turned to her husband, a pleading look appearing in her dark brown eyes.

Instinctively knowing what his wife was going to ask from him, Shuuma merely gave her a kind and warm smile, placing his hand over hers, and staring at both his wife and his children—his _family_ —with a loving look. "You gave birth to her, just as you did with Sena, so of course you get to name her," he said soothingly. "I'll love whatever name you'll give her."

Mihaei swallowed, nodding wordlessly, before she looked down at the beautiful bundle of life within her arms. "I—" Mihae paused, staying silent for a few thoughtful minutes to ponder over what her second child's name would be. "Kanami," she finally answered, sounding a little bit hesitant, before she pursed her lips and nodded in a reassuring way to herself. "Kanami. I'd like to name her Kanami, after my grandmother and your mother," she said, turning to look up at her husband.

Shuuma blinked, testing the name. "Kanami...Kobayakawa Kanami...I like it," he said with a large grin, before looking at the baby in his wife's arms. "Hi there, Kanami-chan. I'm your father, your tou-san. And the beautiful woman who's holding you is your mother, your kaa-san," he cooed in a slightly higher than normal pitched voice.

The little baby girl—now dubbed Kanami—squirmed in her mother's hold, whimpering a little, and squeezing her closed eyes. And, to make things even more adorable, as if hearing his sister's discomfort, the little baby boy—now dubbed Sena—squirmed in his father's hold and whimpered softly as well.

Shuuma and Mihae cooed at their adorable twins, completely enraptured by their cuteness.

And then, to make things even better, the twins gave one last uncomfortable squirm before their eyelids fluttered open for the very first time. A pair of eyes blinked, squinted, squeezed shut tightly, before opening once again to get a less blurry image of the view of their parents.

The pair of newly-fledged parents released an 'awwwww'-ing sound, before the pair blinked, looking dumbfounded for but a moment.

"U-um, excuse me, miss," Mihae said to the nurse who had been patiently staying by their side the whole time, waiting to see if they were completely sure with naming their daughter 'Kanami.' "Is this...normal?" She asked, gesturing to her twins, whose eye colors were completely different from one another.

The nurse blinked, staring down at the pair of babies—the one wrapped in a pink blanket blinked at her, whereas the one in a blue blanket gave her a sleepy yawn. Sena blinked drowsily at her, his dark brown eyes drooping slightly as he yawned once again; Kanami stared at her with big eyes that were the brightest shade of green she's ever known.

"Depends, really," the nurse answered. "Do the two of you have any green-eyed relatives?" She asked, looking up at the two parents.

Shuuma looked straight up at the ceiling, trying to remember if he had any. "Why, yes, I did. My grandma and uncle had green eyes...what about you, hun?" he asked, looking at his wife who had the same thoughtful expression on her face.

"My dad had green eyes," she admitted, much to her husband's shock.

"Green? Are you sure? I always thought they were black or something..." he muttered, making Mihae laugh a little.

"It runs in the boys in the family. The older you get, the darker your eyes become," she explained.

"Well, I guess that's settled then," the nurse piped up, interrupting the couple's conversation. "You have nothing to worry about, Mr. and Mrs. Kobayakawa. This is completely normal," she said with a firm nod. "It's kind of a rare occurrence, but there are some twins with different features such as hair color, hair type, eye color, eye shape, and even skin color. In your situation, since the both of you have dominant brown eyes and recessive green eyes, it's possible for one of your offspring to get the recessive trait with green eyes, multiple or single birth. Kanami here, seems to have gotten that rare trait from you, unlike Sena who inherited your dominant brown eyes," she explained, even as the couple's eyes have already glossed over from the amount of information they could no longer understand.

"I...see," Shuuma said, smiling a little forced smile. "Well, ugh, thanks for the explanation, I guess," he told her, before turning to his wife. "I thought for a minute there that you were having an affair with another man," he sincerely told her, earning him a smack to the back of the head.

"Tch, idiot," Mihae scoffed, rolling her eyes, before releasing a yawn of her own, alerting the nurses that it was time for the new mother to rest.

"Good night, Mihae," Shuuma whispered, tenderly kissing his wife on the head. "When you wake up tomorrow, me and the kids'll be here by your side," he murmured as his wife's eyelids slowly slid shut and his kids were being taken away to be incubated.

* * *

It had taken two to three weeks before the Kobayakawa family could leave the hospital as a whole. Sena and Kanami had been born prematurely, and had to stay in the incubator a little longer than the usual so that the doctors could safely assure Mihae and Shuuma that their children were perfectly healthy babies that wouldn't have any complicated problems in the near future.

The house they lived in couldn't really be called a house yet. It was a small apartment with a conjoined kitchen and living room with the dining room awkwardly placed somewhere in between, one master bedroom, one much smaller bedroom, and a bathroom. They Kobayakawa family lived in a small place within a small apartment complex that was within a quiet neighborhood, but they were happy and content, and that was all that mattered to them.

It had taken a couple of weeks since the newly-fledged parents had brought their twins home to notice the differences between their children aside from gender and eye color.

Despite being the elder twin, Sena was the one who fussed the most and cried the loudest. He'd be the one who'd suddenly cry in the middle of the night every other day, the one who'd be picky about when he'd drink his milk, and the one who didn't like his sleep being disturbed. It had taken them a few days to realize what Sena's sleeping habits were like now—the little tyke would be sleeping for most of the day, and if you'd wake him up he'd start crying, much to his parent's irritation and dismay, and the only time he'd _actually_ be active was somewhere in the afternoon until late night.

Kanami, on the other hand, was an _angel_. She didn't fuss or cry as much as Sena did, and the only time she'd ever cry was when she was hungry or if she needed her diaper changed. She also didn't sleep as much as Sena did; however, unlike her older brother, Kanami liked to _move around_. She had the tendency to roll on her tummy and wiggle about, as if she was trying to crawl despite being only a month old, and she tended to grab the closest stuff doll and pat it.

The Kobayakawa knew three things about their children. Sena was a baby who demanded absolute attention from anyone, Kanami was a very curious baby, and that the two liked to cuddle with one another when they were sleeping, or Sena tended to cuddle his younger sister when he slept and drooled over her, which were one of the few things that made her fuss.

Mihae and Shumma were happy with their children—because what more could they ask for? Their children were adorable, and they neither of them were sick. All in all, it seemed to them that they were blessed with completely normal children.

...That is until Amelia Smith woke up.

* * *

 _'It was...weird,'_ Amelia—no, _Kanami_ thought as she furrowed her eyebrows at the ceiling. Even before this life, where she had been an orphan making her way through highschool, the concept of reincarnation or 'life after death' had never really appealed to her. Amelia, not _Kanami_ , didn't exactly have a religion. The woman who took care of her and the other orphans as kids had taught them about Christianity, since the women themselves were loyal Christians; however, the mere concept of believing in, well, _one_ religion didn't sound all that appealing, especially when Amelia grew older and began to learn more about the histories of several religions, and what people had done for their own beliefs and religions.

Christianity, Sunni Islam, Shia Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Protestantism, Judaism, Ahmadiyya, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and so much more...

It wasn't as if Amelia was an atheist, because she believed that there was a God, and she still prayed before eating and before going to sleep. No, it was just that Amelia had a hard time believing in _which_ God. She had been pressured by both her caretakers and peers about that, because so what if you believed in a God? It didn't matter if you didn't know _which_ God you believed in, as they'd told her.

Amelia had been frustrated by their explanations—because what _right_ did they have to impose their beliefs on her? So what if she believed in a God, but not in a religion? Did it matter to them? It was her life, dammit, and she had the right to make her own decisions. To her, as long as she believed that there was a God somewhere, with the power to control the natural order of the world, and was watching over every single one of them, then she still wasn't atheist, because technically she believed in a God.

So to Amelia, reincarnation was a strange and foreign topic for her that she was completely indifferent to. Without significant people in her life, maybe aside from Mrs. Drews who made sure that she didn't starve herself to death in her room, buried underneath book after book, Amelia never really cared what would have happened after she died. For her, Amelia believed that after one died, they'd just be dead. Gone. Sucked into a black void, their existence in life having been used, and without any real reason to recycle their souls.

But looking at her— _Kanami's_ —tiny and stubby fingers, clenching and unclenching, she couldn't exactly deny the existence of reincarnation anymore.

"Uuuuuuuggghhhh," the baby next to her— _Sena, her brother, her twin_ —whimpered, shifting in discomfort, immediately catching her attention.

Kanami— _not Amelia. Not anymore. Amelia's dead. Died in that car accident. She's_ _ **gone. Gone, gone,**_ **gone** —turned her head to face her brother, whose large, brown eyes were squinted and glossed over with tears. Sena sniffled twice, his fingers making grabby hands, and he kept wriggling about uncomfortably. Curiously, Kanami sniffed her brother, and was hit with the scent of baby powder, and was relieved to know that he didn't make a poopie in his diaper, especially when he was next to her.

Kanami raised her head a bit to stare at the door, then placed it back down so that she could comfortably stare up at her room's dark ceiling. And somewhere, Kanami just _knows_ , from weeks of sleeping beside Sena and having to wake up in the middle of who knows what time because of one of his tantrums, she just _knows_ that Sena is about to throw a tantrum because he just _woke up_.

And Kanami knows that he'd start crying soon, which would in turn wake their parents up. And Kanami wouldn't want that to happen to her poor parents. Her mother and father were very kind and loving parents to her and Sena, showering them with as much attention and affection as they could give, and trying their best to lavish their lives to the best of their capabilities despite the financial problems they had. Her mother was already tired, from having to care of the both of them, complete her daily chores, and deal with some of the rude people that lived upstairs and had the habit of throwing their trash onto their balcony, and her father on the other hand had an important business trip tomorrow, according to the conversation he had with her mom yesterday.

Turning her head to face Sena, Kanami opens her mouth to babble out nonsense to distract her older twin from _exploding_ into tears and screams.

Much to her relief, her older brother pauses in his sniffling, and curiously turns his head to face her, his face still scrunched up into an expression of sleepiness, anger, and pain. He sniffs once, twice, but Kanami moves closer to him and throws her stubby arm over her brother's chest, snuggling up close to him, and babbling quietly into his ear, hoping that the sound of her soft voice could calm him down.

And, fortunately, it _works_ , much to Kanami's surprise, because after a few long minutes of Sena wriggling uncomfortably underneath his sister's hold, the little baby finally manages to settle down. Sena gives one last sniff, before he turns on his side and throws his arm over her, returning her embrace.

The two of them stare into each other's eyes. One pair a dark brown hue; the other a bright green color.

Then finally, Sena's mouth stretches into a wide, toothless grin that shows all of his gums to her.

An in that exact moment, Kanami feels something warm and tingly bubble up within her chest. It's an indescribable feeling, but it makes her feel happy and safe and warm and protected.

Kanami returns the smile with a little difficulty, because the muscles in her mouth aren't used to turning upwards.

And in that moment, Kanami decides that maybe this life wouldn't be as bad as her first one.

* * *

Kanami can admit that living the life of a baby is hard and very frustrating—because the simple things such as talking and walking were now impossible feats to her, what with having a weak and untrained body. So, Kanami starts to discretely practice how to form the simple syllables and how to stand up for now.

Kanami doesn't have a hard time learning Japanese—since she'd learned how to read and write in hiragana, katakana, and kanji from a fellow otaku who'd been generous in lending her some books—but she _does_ struggle with identifying the correct words to say. Japanese and English are not all that different from each other, both have synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, and homophones and both were also a struggle to learn about. Kanami has a hard time understanding Japanese, but she manages to do so.

Especially after her father comes home one day with a stack of children's books that his boss had given to him as a belted gift for their birth. Kanami uses the books to her advantage, trailing her fingers over the written words underneath their designated pictures and trying to pronounce them by forming shapes with her mouth. Kanami also practices the usage of her voicebox by babbling to anyone she could, even though they don't understand her.

She manages to say 'mama' and 'papa' by four months, a whole two months before Sena utters the same words, much to her parent's shock. Kanami remembers her mother bursting into tears and picking her up to cradle her close to her chest, cooing the entire time about how wonderful it is to hear Kanami speak. Her father, on the other hand, looks happy, but he _does_ look concerned and suspicious about something.

And that's when Kanami decides to patiently wait for Sena to stand up before she can. She doesn't want to arouse any suspicions from either her mother or her father that she is anything but their darling daughter. So she waits until Sena stands up, which he does at ten months, the time she's able to say basic sentences that slightly starts to make sense, and she soon stands up a week after Sena's feat.

And it works. Her father no longer considers her intelligence with suspicion but instead with fatherly pride. Her mother lovingly describes her as a very smart baby, perhaps even a prodigy—when Kanami hears that word being used on her, she'd had to cover her bright red face with her hands, and had promptly stopped talking for a day or two.

All in all, life seems good to Kanami, and she starts to enjoy every second of it.

* * *

Time passes by in the blink of an eye to Kanami. Minutes turn into hours, hours turn into days, days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months. Before she knows it, it's already been a year since she'd popped out of her mother and, to an extent, her and her brother's shared birthday. She's learned a few things about her family since 'Amelia' had woken up from her deep slumber. Her father is a business man for a company that has just started a few years ago, whereas her mother is a stay at home wife who likes watching soap operas with her and Sena curled up to her sides on the couch. Sena, the little devil in sheep's clothing, has a habit of getting his fingers tangled up in her slowly growing hair and pulling on it until her scalp hurts and she has to swat his hands away from her.

And as time passes by, Kanami not only starts to enjoy life with a family, but also starts to love her new family as well.

In her previous life, 'Amelia' had been an orphan with nobody to return her love. She's loved things—most particularly the old laptop that Mrs. Drews gave to her when she turned fourteen—but never has she loved a human being, aside from 2D characters like Itachi Uchiha, Sebastian Michaelis, Usui Takumi, Ikuto Tsukiyomi, Zuko, and so, _so_ much more; so having been born in a family for the second time is unfamiliar and weird to her, especially when her father picks her up and tries to make her laugh, when her mother cradles her against her chest and whisper sweet nothings to her, and when her twin brother shares his things with her with enthusiasm.

'Amelia' didn't have anybody like that. Amelia grew up bullied, unloved, and unwanted. There was nobody there for her to make her laugh, to make her feel better, or to brighten up her day; she had nobody to watch out for her mental well-being, and the kids in the orphanage were mean to her, never bothering to share their things with her and instead choosing to boast about it in front of her.

Kanami, on the other hand, grew up with everything Amelia wanted. An actual place to call home and a family who love her despite her many faults.

And Kanami doesn't know how to handle that much love cocooning her, so she reacts to their love the only way she, not even a year old yet baby, knows how to. By spontaneously crying while she mentally wails about how she doesn't deserve such loving parents and an adorable older brother who loves her so _so_ much that it just feels so _painful_.

Kanami wonders how lucky 'Amelia' and she is to have experienced love, even after death, because it's one the most beautiful feelings she could ever feel.

* * *

Kanami realizes something about the life she'd been born into a little too late.

Today's her and her brother's birthday and they're currently spending it in the house of her father's parents, because Kero-ojii and Namie-obaa's house is the only house big enough to contain their big family. Kanami sees people—people who she's apparently related to—she's never seen before, but takes in their affections with greed—she isn't hesitant to call herself an attention whore, because she _knows_ she's one, but who wouldn't? When they'd lived a life depraved of attention that wasn't negative in the slightest?

But she promptly swats the hands closing in on her cheeks. Cooing and pats on the head she can take, even being handed off to be cuddled by other people, but Kanami draws a strict line before cheek pinching. She's seen Sena promptly bursting into tears when a particularly clumsy uncle of theirs had squeezed his cheeks a little bit too much, and she really doesn't want the same thing to happen to her.

Nu-uh. Sena can deal with all those cheek-pinching addicts that they call uncles and aunts, while she deals with the pats on the heads and priases of being such an adorable baby.

She's currently in the lap of one of her older cousin's—Minoru, a teenager with hair as dark as hers and eyes a much darker shade of brown compared to her brother's. Kanami doesn't mind being cuddled tightly to his chest as he coos in an embarrassedly high-pitched voice at how adorable and obedient she is for a one-year old baby.

Kanami sucks up his compliment like a sponge to water, and promptly awards her nice cousin with a big toothy smile that makes his dark brown eyes glitter and an 'awe-ing' sound bubble up from his throat.

It is only when her uncle grabs Minoru-nii's attention, does Kanami feel a sense of foreboding settle within the depths of her stomach.

"Hey, Minoru-kun! Isn't that your highschool playing?" Uncle number over nine thousand says; almost immediately, Kanami and Minoru's gaze strays towards the television placed in the very center of the wall adjacent to them.

On screen, there are a pair of teams, one on each end and wearing the assigned uniforms of their school, within a very big field with grass cut to a short length. The sun's rays beam down harshly against all of the players backs, and Kanami can barely see the bleachers filled with people who are cheering for their respective teams.

Kanami recognizes the sport on television. It's football— _American_ Football, to be more exact, and she winces when she sees that one of the players had been brutally tackled to the ground by two people because he'd been holding the football. She sees that the referee has blown the whistle, but she doesn't hear it because of the commentors on screen. She blinks when the screen transforms from the players on the field to a pair of people sitting on a table and commenting about some players' skills.

Kanami takes the time to read the characters on the bottom part of the screen, where there are a set of numbers—most likely the score board—right next to the characters. She recognizes the characters written over the screen as Hiragana characters, and Kanami blesses whatever deity there is out there that it's _Hiragana_ and not _Kanji_ of all things.

She squints her eyes to read the characters that she hopes would form the names of the teams.

み would be _Mi_ ; さ would be _Sa;_ き would be _Ki_. Misaki.

Before Kanami could decode the remaining Hiragana characters, her cousin and uncle does it for her.

"Hey, isn't that your high school, Minoru-kun?"

"Oh, you're right. I forgot that my school's football team had a game today."

"Forgot? Boy! Where's your school spirit?!"

"Ahaha. I can't keep track of all the teams on my school. I have enough trouble worrying about my own club."

"Hmmm, ok, but the Misaki Wolves, huh? That's a pretty cool name, are they any good?"

"Yeah. They're pretty good, but man, up against's Oujou's White Knights? I'm not really sure who'll win this one."

Kanami then promptly tuned out the rest of the conversation, her eyes having widened at the mention of _that_ particular team.

 _'Oujou's White Knights?'_ She thinks, feeling a little bit dazed. _'Isn't that from that one sports manga I used to read before? What was it called again? Wait, what letter did it start with again? A? D? E? E! Oh yeah! Eyeshield 21!'_ She thinks, but then realizations dawns upon her when she _remembers_ a crucial detail of that certain manga. _'Wait a humping minute, wasn't its main character's name Kobayakawa Sena?'_

Almost immediately, Kanami snaps her head to where her twin sibling would be, right in the lap of one of her evil aunts, with his cheeks once again being squeezed to their limit. Kanami ignores the urge to giggle at her brother's misfortune, because there are much more important things that must be tended to immediately. She squints her eyes to get a better look at him, memorizing each detail of him with great focus.

Dark brown hair. Dark brown eyes. Her twin brother has the same hair and eye colors as the main character of Eyeshield 21, and they _do_ share the same name; however, he doesn't quite yet look like Kobayakawa Sena from Eyeshield 21, and Kanami doubts her twin brother would gain legs that'd be able to run fifty yards in 4.0 seconds flat when he can just barely catch up to her, and _toddling_ for crying out loud!

So Kanami relaxes against her cousin's chest, breathes out slowly, and decides that her life isn't some cliche fan fiction where the main character dies and gets reincarnated into a universe that had once been fiction. She's just Kobayakawa Kanami, the not so ordinary daughter of Kobayakawa Shuuma and Mihae, fraternal twin sister to Kobayakawa Sena, with the soul and consciousness of one Amelia Smith. She's _normal_ ; well, as normal as any teenage girl that had suddenly woken up as a baby girl can get.


	2. Chapter 2

**Blessings in Disguise**

 **Written by:** ** _CherryDrug_**

 **Disclaimer** **:** _"I am not the liable owner of the series or franchise of one Eyeshield 21. I do not own it's original plot, it's characters, the public figures, events, places and etcetera. I do, however, own the plot of this story, as well as my OC, one Kobayakawa Kanami. Arigatou for not suing me :)."_

 **Rating** _: This'll be a T-rated fan fiction, so those who're expecting sex or mature themes, please wait for a while ahaha. I'm not yet ready to corrupt my virgin mind with lemons or erotic stories just so that I could please all you perverts, ehehe ;)_

 **Genre** _: Family, Friendship, Adventure, Drama, a spice of Humor, and Romance some time down the road :)_

 **Characters** _: Erm...there'll be a lot in the future, but for now, Kobayakawa Kanami will be our main character for this story of ours :)_

 **Summary:** _I wasn't somebody important that died from a tragic yet all too coincidental accident, with no family to bury me and no friends to mourn my passing; whereas she had been unexpectedly born into a family that still welcomed her with open arms, grew up with a supposedly fictional main character for an elder twin brother. Dear God, why mix us together? SI!OC-as-Sena's-twin._

 **Pairings** _: So, er, yeah, gave it some thought, took this story seriously (because woah, wtf, I got 50 follows and more than 40 favorites in a fandom that I'd assumed to be dead xD) and I'm not really sure xD_

AN: _A little bit of a tip to you readers, take note of the OC's here. They may seem annoying and unimportant_ , _but trust me, they're play a kinda minor role in this story for the important twists and turns and dives._

 _Oh! And I kinda have a little debate here though. It's obvious that Kanami's gonna pursue the American Football club, but I'm thinking about what part she'll play for it? Managers and cheerleaders have already been crossed off (wtf, no, i'm not making her a get dressed up in a skirt so that she could do high kicks and shit), which leaves the position of a player haha. I've already planned that she'd be a wild card, as well as her primary position; however, I'd like some suggestions about what positions she could possibly play (minus being a part of the line or kicker.)_

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

* * *

Kanami doesn't really quite believe in her speculations of being reincarnated into a fictional world—much less an _anime_ one. A _sports anime_ one. It's cliche and stupid and sweet, _sweet_ , mashed potatoes swallowing a huge chunk of blue cheese does she just wants to bury herself underneath the comfort of her blankets and wail because this is _not_ what she expected when she died as Amelia.

She's supposed to have a _normal_ life. And she can, if she decides so, but how could she ever leave her sweet, _sweet_ , and most of the time dumb and noisy older twin brother to the wolves? Sena can be annoying at time, but he makes up for it with his adorableness and cuddliness. Besides, it's her job as his twin to watch out for him and like hell will she just let him be swallowed whole alone; but she'll decide whether or not she'll continue on with her determination once she tries out Hiruma's hellish training program; _if_ she decides it's not worth being demeaned and beaten to the ground, then screw Sena, it's every man for himself dammit.

Kanami may be possessive of her brother and may love him to teeny tiny bits, but she's not dumb, and she's certainly not suicidal. If Hiruma is as much as a devil as he is in the original plot line, then she'll want absolutely _nothing_ with his extreme and illegal ways; she may not be a saint, but she wants to _live_ and not die again, thank you very much.

And after all, when she'd been Amelia, the first thing she'd learn— _in that old orphanage where you can see the paint peeling off the walls, where there are cheap carpets covering the holes in the floor, where she can hear children **screaming** left and right as she huddles herself into the corner of her tiny room, trying to keep herself warm in that **chilly** space, wondering when she'll get out day after day after_ —and Kanami promptly destroys that thought and sweeps away its ashes.

Amelia had first been taught to love herself and only herself; unfortunately, lessons stick to her like superglue and are almost impossible to get rid off, considering the punishments in the orphanage are quite brutal and strict, and have easily implemented the dos and don'ts of its rules to avoid being locked up in the basement or _worse_ , in the small cabinet that's near the stove, and Kanami knows it's the more evil of the two punishments because she knows what it _feels_ like to be locked up in there, the heat from the stove making the small cabinet feel like she's on the surface of the sun as she sweats buckets.

"Kami!" Her thoughts are promptly broken off by her older twin brother, and she calmly turns her head to face the bundle of joy who's practically vibrating in his seat.

Kanami frowns slightly at her older brother, mentally apologizing to Kami for being referred in his name. "Don't call me that," she scolds lightly. "It's Kanami. Ka-Na-Mi," she says, reciting the syllables slowly and loudly several times.

And Sena, the sponge that he can sometimes be if he's motivated properly, tests the waters. He stumbles over her name a few times, just as he does in the past, but he eventually succeeds.

"Kanami!" He exclaims as he throws his tiny yet heavy body onto her, making her wince when he accidentally elbows her in the stomach, but she only sighs in an exasperated manner when he nuzzles his cheek against her. "Rab you," he coos, and Kanami's lips stretch into a fond smile.

"I love you too, Sena," she murmurs affectionately, running her fingers through his dark locks that're soft to her touch.

* * *

Both Kanami and Sena are two years and four months old when their father buys a house in the much safer districts of Tokyo, Japan. They're two and a half years old when they move into the house, and when they arrive, Kanami admits that the house looks nice. It may not be grandiose or anything like that, but it has a homely feel to it that makes it feel like this house could be as much as a home to them as the apartment they'd lived in since they'd been born.

There are a total of one living room, one dining room, one kitchen, three bedrooms and three bathrooms in the house. The living room is twice as big as their old living room, and is furnished with new furnitures that are soft to the touch, and Kanami enjoys the feeling of the furry carpet underneath her bare feet, even going so far as to childishly wiggle her toes to get a better feel of it; the kitchen doesn't look any different from their old one, but the refrigerator is of a newer model, as is the stove and microwave, but other than that, it looks the same; the dining room is a little bit bigger than their old one, and Kanami likes it because there's a decorative plant in ever corner of this room, and she also likes the new glass cabinets that had been made for the antiques her grandparents had sent to them as presents for the new house.

Kanami's seen the first floor bathroom, which is a very small room that only consists of a toilet and a tissue dispenser right beside it. She decides that she doesn't like it one bit, and that she'll _never_ use it, because she doesn't like enclosed spaces, and this one just wins the prize of smallest bathroom ever.

It's only when they reach the second floor does her delight in having a new and much bigger house end. She's seen the master bedroom, the one for her parents, and she pouts when she sees that they get to have their own personal bathroom for them to use. It's only when they arrive at her and Sena's bedrooms does she pause and stare blankly at it

And for once both Kanami and Sena are mutually confused as they stand in the hallway with their mother, in front of two open doors leading to two different rooms, and with blank expressions upon their faces.

"Ara?" Their mother said, blinking. "What's wrong, Kana-chan, Sena-kun? Aren't you happy that you get to have your own rooms, now?" She asked them.

 _'This...was not what I'd been expecting...'_ Kanami thinks, still too stunned to say anything. It had never occurred to her that one day she and her twin brother would have to be separated, whether it be by sleeping in different blankets in their shared crib or by sleeping in _their own_ beds in _their own_ rooms that's separated by a thick wall made of stone with no archway to connect the two. The two of them had been so conjoined by the hip that it'd been impossible to think of having to sleep in different rooms, of all things.

Luckily for Kanami, she didn't have to complain to their mother about this sudden change in lifestyle. Sena did it for her.

"B-But," Sena stutters out, his expression twisting into something sorrowful as he wraps his arms around Kanami's left arm. "Okaa-chan, I wan'a s-swe-sleep with Kan'a-chan," he said, struggling to properly form the words.

"Oh, Sena-kun," their mother sighed as she dropped down to her knees. "You and Kana-chan are big now. And big girls and boys have to sleep in different rooms," she tried to say consolingly.

Usually, little boys would puff out their chests in pride when being referred to as a big boy; however, Sena was not your usual little boy, and if it meant that he couldn't sleep in the same bed with his little sister, the only person who he could cuddle up to when the room was dark and scary, and the only person who prevented the night monsters from eating him, then screw being a big boy, he wouldn't sacrifice the comfort his own twin provided him with to become a big boy of all things.

Sena sniffed once, twice, before his big brown eyes becomes teary and big fat tears began trailing down his cheeks as he wailed out as loud as he could. "I DUN WAN'A BE A BIG BOY!" He cried out, clutching Kanami's arm as if it was a lifeline. "I DUN WAN'A SLEEP IN DIFFERENT ROOMS! I WAN'A SLEEP WITH KAN'A-CHAN!" He sobbed out despairingly.

Kanami merely sighed and patted her older brother on the head, taking advantage of his crying to run her fingers through his hair. Ever since they'd turn two, Sena didn't like to be patted in the head, saying that it was weird and that he didn't like his hair to be messed up despite it looking like he'd just gotten out of bed 24/7.

"We're two years old, okaa-chan," Kanami said, trying to sound as persuasive as a two year old could get. "Maybe when we're old," she said, before pausing in confusion. She was sure she'd used the wrong predicate adjective, but she didn't know the Japanese term for older so she'd settled for old.

Their mother looked at them, eyes much more softer, and she gave an exasperated sigh before smiling in defeat. "Oh alright, you two. You win this round," she said with a laugh as she tousled their hair. Sena whined loudly at the abuse of his hair whilst Kanami merely grumbled her complaints beneath her breath before she fixed her headband. "And it's 'older' Kanami, but your vocabulary's getting better! Oh, I'm so proud of my smart baby girl!" Their mother beamed, kissing Kanami on the forehead as the little brown haired girl preened at the attention.

"Ahhh, w'at 'bout me, 'kaa-chan?" Sena demanded, tugging on her skirt, desperate for attention as well.

Their mother just smiled and gave Sena a kiss on the forehead. "You too, Sena-kun. Both of you make me so proud," she said as she nuzzled her cheek against Sena's cheek.

Kanami just smiled fondly at her mother and brother, content with life.

* * *

 _'Really,'_ Kanami thinks when it's already nighttime and Sena's snuggling into her side, right arm and leg thrown over her body with the intent to squish her with their combined weight. _'I don't see the logic in being reincarnated into a sports anime with my memories completely intact. Wouldn't it be better if I was in some kind of action or tragedy anime where the characters die or something? This is seriously weird,'_ she thinks.

And it is. Amelia's been in a lot of freaky situations—such as being beaten to a pulp by some guys who wanted her monthly allowance from the orphanage, as well as being stuck in a tree when she was eight because a rottweiler had decided that she'd be a perfect mauling toy for it, and many, many more—but this just takes the prize.

And really, Amelia may have known what to do, but _Kanami_ doesn't. She's _two_ , for goodness's sake, and while she may remember what's the story for Eyeshield 21, she doesn't really know _everything_ about it. She doesn't have a complete memory of all of the anime she watches and any of the manga she reads. She can't, for the life of her, remember the names of the teams (much less their _schools)_ that are competing, nor does she remember the name of every single character that's appeared. She's only Kanami, the one that used to be the average joe called Amelia Smith before she went off to get hit by a goddamn car, and Kanami's the farthest thing from being perfect.

But she'll try. Kanami's sure of it. She'll let the story flow off by itself, with a few minor tweaks here and there, such as preparing her dearest older brother for Himura Yoichi's hellish training, and preventing her dearest older brother from being bullied. And who knows, maybe Sena might grow a backbone of his own.

 _'Yes_ , _'_ Kanami thinks as her eyelids start to drowsily slide shut. _'I'll just let the story flow for now.'_

* * *

Of course, every plan—either grand or small—always has a few setbacks to it—whether major or minor ones.

"No."

Her _onii-chan_ , as her mother had tried so very hard for Kanami to call Sena as, says it with so much conviction and firmness that it makes her blink blankly at him, at a loss for once because of her _onii-chan_.

"Why not?" Kanami adamantly asks after she'd recomposed herself. She's almost _twenty_ , in terms of mental capacity, for goodness's sake. A two year-old should not have the capability nor prowess to surprise her. Especially when said two year-old was her older brother who she completely knew every single thing about, from his weight, to his sleeping habits, to his eating habits—heck, even to how big his little 'Sena-chan' is. They're _twins_ , so it really shouldn't be all that easy to surprise each other, in her opinion. "It's fun," she tries to coax.

But Sena's damn stubborn with his decision. "No!" He exclaims, puffing his cheeks until they're all red. "I dun wan'a!" He exclaims, pouting so adorably that Kanami just has to reach over and lightly pinch his cheeks. As expected, her twin brother swats her hands away with a _'NO!'_ He's been using that word for a couple of weeks now, and Kanami's guessing that it's his favorite word for this month.

Last month had been weewee. The month before that had been yuck. As you can guess, Sena had been quite a handful to our parents, whereas he'd been Kanami's main source of entertainment in this boring life as a baby.

"Why not?" Kanami asked again, stubborn as well to make him see my way. "It's bright outside! Let's play!" Kanami said, tugging on his shirt, and giving him her best puppy dog eyes.

Sena was immune to her puppy dog eyes because he had a better pair. Whatever. "But it's _hot_ _!_ " He complained.

Her plan to make she and her brother physically active by playing outside seemed to have hit a setback, but she knew the right buttons on him to press.

"I'll get okaa-chan's cookies," she bargained.

Sena seemed to mull over this deal. "Pwomise?" He said, his r blurring into a w once again since their mother wasn't here.

"Promise," she said.

"Okay!" He chirped, beaming brightly at her as he struggled to stand up. Kanami followed suit; and soon, the both of them were walking towards the glass door that lead towards the backyard, hand in hand.

Their mother didn't like them playing outside, because she'd deemed it to dangerous for us two-year olds. But Kanami needed to feel the sun's rays beating down on her skin once again—Kanami never thought she'd missed the sun, considering how pale Amelia had been—and Sena needed some sun too; plus, playing outdoors was much more fun compared to playing indoors where Sena could most likely crack his head against the sharp edge of the dining room table.

 _'Oh well,'_ she thought as she grabbed a stool and wobbly stood on top of it, reaching for the latch to unlock the glass door. _'Okaa-chan will find us after she's done cooking. Plenty of time to play in the grass.'_

* * *

They'd turned three this October 18; however, compared to last year when they'd spent their second birthday in the comfort of their mother and father in their homely apartment, they celebrated their shared birthday in the compound of their grandparents, surrounded by their relatives. As usual, Sena and Kanami had been passed off to each one of their aunts for a devastating attack to their cheeks that had already gone rosy from Namie-obaa's torture. Afterwards, they spent their time with their older cousins, still being the runts of the family—but Kanami was glad to hear that one of their aunts had recently gotten pregnant and was currently expecting.

Kanami spent time with Minoru, who'd immediately taken her from the arms of the last aunt who wanted to coo at her, having decided that he was going to be her designated guardian for the meantime. Honestly, she didn't mind all that much, but she _was_ surprised to see a seven year-old lookalike of Minoru staring down at her, only to find out that the kid was just his younger brother who she hadn't really been introduced to yet.

His name was Shigehiro, and he seemed to nice enough even though he had the terrible habit of picking his nose and wiping them off of the sides of the couch.

Kanami met a few other of her female cousins—a Mikoto, an Ayame, a Kiyoko, and a few others that didn't really strike her as interesting—but Minoru and Taiki had apparently glued her to their sides because they wouldn't budge, especially when Mikoto had demanded her from him _or else_.

Sena, on the other hand, was probably dozing off into the master bedroom, that lucky son of a gun.

"Ne, Mino-nii," Kanami said, patting his arms which were currently encircled around her.

"Hm?" Her cousin told her, completely distracted by the basketball game on T.V. "What is it, Kana-chan?" He asked her as he placed his chin on the top of her head.

There was something that Kanami wanted to ask him, but the idea slipped out of her mind. A little bit flustered for suddenly calling his name, Kanami asked him a completely random question. "What color do you like?"

She felt Minoru shift around her, making her feel a little bit drowsy. A nap sounded really good to her right now. "Hm? I like a lot of colors, but my favorite's blue," was his answer. Then, "What about you, Kana-chan?"

"I like green," Kanami answered, because it was the color of her eyes.

"Ahhh," he said, shifting again, and she yawned sleepily. "Ara? You're getting sleepy, Kana-chan. Do you want to sleep beside Sena-kun?" He asked her, and Kanami slowly nodded. She felt him position her into his arms before he stood up with the sole strength of his legs and turned Kanami around so that she could tuck her chin over his shoulder, blinking down at Shigehiro who stared up at them.

"Bye bye," Kanami said, waving at him, as Minoru began walking away with her in his arms.

Shigehiro just waved back at her, blinking dumbly, which only seemed to amputate his boyish cuteness.

If that's what Sena's going to be like in the future, then he'd be kawaii as fuck. Minus the nose picking and placing his boogers in completely random and inappropriate places, of course.

* * *

Even though they were already three years old, Sena and Kanami still slept in the same bed; only this time, it was in _his_ room. What can she say? They needed a change of scenery.

Their mother just sighed in exasperation at them, whilst their father just kissed them on the crown of their heads and told them that yes, they didn't have to grow up so early.

(Kanami pretended not to notice his gaze on her when he'd said that.)

* * *

"What do you want to be when you grow up, Kana-chan?" Her mother suddenly asked whilst they were preparing lunch together—with her mother slicing the beef and Kanami picking apart the rotten ends of the leafy vegetables. It was to be expected that no three-year old should be handed anything sharp, and Kanami was proud of the fact that her mother at least had the common sense to know about it. She'd read a couple of stories where the SI!OC's mothers were a bit eccentric and airheaded to understand that no, you should not give any child below five anything sharp and pointy and could possibly be used to main themselves or others.

"Huh?" Kanami asked, blinking up at her.

Her mother gave her a serene and all too beaning smile that Kanami's come to love.

"I asked what you wanted to be when you grow up, Kana-chan," she repeated, before giggling. "You've been getting your head lost in the clouds recently, ne?"

Kanami gave off a laugh while sheepishly rubbing the back of her head. "Haha. Sorry, okaa-chan, but I was just thinking about how cool's the show Sena-kun's been watching," she said, and her mother nodded her head in reply. "But...I'm not really sure what I want to be when I grow up, okaa-chan," she confessed.

Kanami never really gave any thought as to what she wanted to be in the future. When she'd been Amelia, all she'd been thinking about was finding a part-time job so that she could support myself once she got out of the orphanage so that she could maybe get into university through a scholarship, or get adopted by a couple even though her chances were slim considering that Amelia had already gone past the 'below ten' category that was much more popular (and better, in her opinion) compared to the angsty teenager category. Amelia had wanted to become a chef, or a patissiere; only problem was that culinary school was expensive as fuck and she didn't posses any cooking fairy that could give her amazing cooking powers or be born with said cooking powers that could give anybody orgasms with just the taste of her food.

But now—now that she was Kanami, everything just...Everything just kinda transformed into a blank slate for her. As if she was trying to tell herself to start 'anew' or something.

Meh. If Kanami didn't have an answer, it didn't mean she couldn't sweet talk her mother, ne?

"But if there's someone I want to be like, I'd want to be like okaa-chan," Kanami said softly, mustering my sweetest smile. She didn't have to force herself to blush, because the moment her mother gave her that adoring look of hers that made Kanami feel warm and complete and loved all over, Kanami's entire face turned a dark shade of red.

"Mou," her mother said, setting down the knife and wiping her hands on her apron so that she could kiss Kanami's head without any sticky fingers. "You're the sweetest little angel ever. I don't know what your father and I did to ever deserve you and Sena-kun," she said, kissing Kanami's forehead this time.

There were a lot of things that Kanami wanted to say to her mother right this very moment. Like: _It's me who should be wondering what I ever did to deserve you or otou-chan or Sena-kun_ and _I really, **really** don't deserve any of you guys. You're all too good for me._

But Kanami kept her mouth shut as the Amelia within her curled up into a tight ball, filled to the very brim of guilt for lying to her mother. For lying to the woman who'd given birth to her, and loved her with everything she had despite the problems Kanami had caused to their savings. For stealing her real daughter's body and enjoying the life that the real _Kanami_ should have had.

But Kanami doesn't feel guilty that she's living another person's life. It's _hers_ now. It's _her_ life now, and she can do whatever she wanted with it. It's just that lying to her mother makes her feel guilty and horrible.

So Kanami just smiles and swallows the truth down her throat, all the while coming up with an excuse that manages past clenched teeth. "I love you, okaa-chan."

"Oh, Kanami," her mother sighs. "I love you too, sweetheart. More than you'll ever know, and that'll never change no matter what."

Kanami admits later, when she's having a hard time falling asleep that night, that her chest had tightened up when her mother had told her that.

* * *

It's early December when their mother deems it perfectly fine and perfectly safe for her friends since highschool to come over to have some tea in their place. Kanami and Sena are already three years old, already old and big enough to be introduced to random strangers _outside_ of the family, according to their father. Kanami doesn't see why it'd taken her mother so long to invite her old time friends to their house—it's not like any of her friends carries a gun in their purse, or is a child serial killer, or something, or maybe it's because her mother might be worried over the fact that Sena had the amusing habit of streaking throughout the entire household the minute he'd turned two and decided that clothes were a bother.

(Their mother had made extra sure to remind Sena several times to _not_ remove his clothes in front of their, or _anybody else's_ , house guests. It's a good thing it's cold this time of the year, because instead of stripping, Sena dons on even _more_ clothes to protect himself from the cold. In Kanami's opinion, it's absolutely adorable. He looks like a ball of clothes that could be rolled around.)

So now, here they were, in the kitchen, with their mother placing a tray of freshly baked cookies on a counter, and Sena tugging on their mother's skirt, shyly asking for a cookie with a pair of puppy dog eyes. Kanami watches them from the stool she's sitting on, feeling a little bit left out at their interactions, but all too much enjoying the sight of their mother caving in to her adorable twin's desiers.

And then, the serene moment in ruined by their doorbell ringing.

"Ah! That must be one of my friends. Kana-chan, can you be a dear and get the door for me?" Her mother asks her as she prepares the cookies on a ceramic plate with pink lotuses as its design.

"'Kay!" Kanami chirped, jumping off her seat and making her way towards the front door. She stood on the very tips of her toes to reach the door knob, before she froze, a thought entering her mind once she remembered this one movie trailer where a little girl answered the door and got her head bitten off by a zombie. Pulling away from the door, Kanami gave it a wary look. "Who is it?" She hesitantly asked, deciding that if they didn't answer then she wouldn't open the door.

Kanami felt relieved when she heard voices coming from the other side of the door, before she heard somebody politely anouncing their presences. "It's just us, Mihae." Comforted with the fact that she wouldn't have my face bitten off today, Kanami reached out to twist the door handle open, then pulled.

She was met with the sight of legs cladded in a dark blue pencil skirt—which, in Kanami's opinion, was just absolutely _gorgeous_. She'd always been a sucker for skirts, even though she'd taken to wearing jeans more. Pity that there were a lot of perverted boys in her orphanage—and Kanami trailed her gaze upwards to meet a pair of narrowed, hazel-colored bordering on burnt gold orbs trained on her.

The woman blinked down at her. "Oh...Hello," she said, politely albeit awkwardly. She turned to look back at the other women behind her—was that _pink_ hair on one of them? Kanami looked stunned. She understood the logic of anime, but _pink?_ Woah—before the woman turned back to look down at her. "Does Kobayakawa Mihae live here?" She asked, peering inside the house.

Kanami just wordlessly nodded her head, before deciding to make use of her voice box. "She's my haha-ue," she answered, before moving to stand away from the doorway. "Please, come inside," she said, remembering her manners, and bowing her head a little bit.

Kanami could barely hear the whispers and murmurs exchanged upon the women, but her cheeks tinged a slight red when she caught one of them commenting about her good manners and why couldn't her children be like her.

Once her mother's guests had all taken off their shoes, Kanami finally took notice of the little girl shyly hiding behind one of the woman. When her gaze clashed with the other girl's gaze— _'Oh,'_ Kanami thought. _'She has very pretty eyes. I'm kinda jealous,'_ and deep down, she secretly was. The two of them stared at one another for a moment, before the other girl broke her stare and shyly looked away from her.

Kanami just continued to stare at the girl, finding her incredibly intriguing. It's been the first time she's met another girl who didn't seem all that much older than her, so who could really blame her?

Just then, her mother came out from the kitchen, carrying the plate of cookies in her hands.

"Ara? What are you doing just standing there? Come, come, let's go talk in the living room," her mother ushered the women, who giggled or smiled fondly at her nagging but complied with anyways.

The little girl followed her mother's steps, but she made sure to look back at Kanami, the look of interest and curiosity clear on her face, before she looked away to follow the woman who was most obviously her mother.

Sena didn't miss that interaction.

"Who's she?" He asked, turning his big brown eyes towards her.

Kanami shrugged before hooking her arm around her twin's. "No idea, but we'll see soon," she replied as she pulled him into the living room.

Sena just frowned, snaking his hand into her own and intertwining their fingers. He squeezed their clasped hands tightly. "You're _my_ sister, 'kay? _Mine_ ," he said, sounding like the overprotective older brother that he was, and a tad bit obsessive too. "You're not allowed to be anyone else's sister," he said passionately, and Kanami just giggled at her brother's silliness and obnoxious ideas. _Seriously_ , the other girl had just looked at her and he was already this jealous.

"But what would happen if okaa-chan gives us a new brother or sister?" Kanami asks, and Sena's frown just deepens as he looks thoughtful.

"That's fine then," Sena allowed. "As long as I'll still be the big brother," he says seriously, and Kanami snorts at his logic. It's not like their mother could give birth to a child older than her first child. Really, she should be worried about her twin's intelligence, but he was only _three_ , so no worries. She'll worry about him if he still has the same mindset when he's a teenager.

"Kana-chan! Sena-kun! Come and introduce yourselves to my friends!" Their mother said, tugging on the back of their clothes to get their attention.

Kanami and Sena looked at one another, before they muttered amongst themselves over who would go first. As expected, Sena had been prompted to go first, as his status as the older twin.

Sena fidgeted from where he stood for a few moments, not really knowing how to start, and blushing to the very tips of his ears. It had only taken a rather sharp elbow to the side from his twin sister to snap him out of his nervous state, and, with an accusing look sent towards his sister, he began stammering out his introduction. "M-My name is K-Kobayakawa Sena. I-I just turned three last October, and I really like my okaa-chan's cooking," he said, playing with his fingers as he continued to look down at the floor as if he could the find the answer to the mystery that is life.

Kanami took the next moment of silence as her cue to begin. "Good morning, everybody. I'm Kobayakawa Kanami, and I just turned three years old last October as well. And I like my family the most, as well as reading books," she finished while giving a bow, and when she turned her head, she could see the glow of pride surrounding their mother for her children.

"Kawaii yo!" One of the women—the only one with bright pink hair, and eyes a darker shade of green compared to hers—gushed. "Mie-chan! You never told me that you had such adorable _twins!_ " She exclaimed, reaching over to the pinch Sena's cheeks until they were a bright red.

Kanami casted her brother a sympathetic look. It wasn't his fault he was born with the chubbier cheeks, but she was lucky and thankful that he was.

"And your daughter's very polite," a woman with blonde hair and dark brown eyes commented, before she turned her sharp gaze onto the aforementioned daughter. "Kanami, was it?" She inquired.

Kanami nodded. "Yes, oba-san. But I prefer Kana," she said, putting on the smile she'd been practicing on with a mirror.

The blonde-headed woman gave her an appraising stare, clearly impressed with her manners. "And you can call me Hitomi, Kana-chan," she said, returning the same kind of smile that Kanami had on.

"Oh! Where are my manners!" The pink haired woman said before giggling all of a sudden, and Kanami wondered if she was mentally sane. "You little cuties can just call me Momoi-oba!" She cheered, grinning widely and showing off her pearly whites.

"I'm Mitsuki," the woman with the yellowish hazel eyes said, her lips quirking upwards for a brief moment. "It's nice to finally meet you, Sena-kun, Kana-chan," she said, patting the both of them on the head.

Kanami was slightly surprised that Sena didn't complain about his hair—but she assumed that it was because he wanted to maintain a polite composure too, judging by the 'shy albeit trying to be polite' smile he sent to their oba-sans, which she assumed had completely melted their hearts from how adorable Snea looked right now.

"You may call me Nagi-oba," a woman—the only one with both normal hair and eye colors, in Kanami's opinion, what with her relatively normal dark brown hair and relatively normal dark brown eyes—said, placing a delicate hand on her chest, as she smiled gently and sweetly. "I hope that we'll get along well," she added, and Kanami watched as Sena blushed deeply underneath Nagi-oba's soft gaze.

"Well that just leaves me, huh," the woman with the little girl sighed with an exasperated smile, her not quite blue yet not quite green eyes twinkling brightly that made Kanami think of Dumbledore, since was the only guy she knew whose eyes could _twinkle_ , and he wasn't even _real_. "You can call me Asuka-oba, then. And this is my daughter," she said, ushering the girl from her back to introduce herself.

Kanami and Sena kept their eyes trained on the other girl, both highly curious and highly interested in who the other girl was and what kind of entertainment she could offer to them. It was obvious to them that the other girl was nervous, from the way she fidgeted—however, the other girl managed to overcome her nerves and took a deep breath to calm herself down before introducing herself.

Kanami didn't expect what happened next.

"Konnichiwa. I'm Anezaki Mamori, and I just turned four last week. I like helping my okaa-chan in the kitchen, and I like my family and reading too," she said, casting a glance at the twins before she looked up their mother. "Please treat me well," she said before executing the traditional bow.

Kanami just stared at Mamori, her expression devoid of any emotion as her mother and her friends gushed over Mamori as well.

 _'Kami-sama,'_ she thought, not really knowing _what to do right now_ , because she was surprised out of her wits. _'I never thought I'd meet another character so soon!'_ She began mentally panicking, wondering _what the hell she should do!_ Kanami knew that she should act normal and polite and nice—because this was _Mamori_ , her older brother's surrogate older sister, and it wouldn't do her any good if she left a bad impression on Mamori which resulted in the girl never wanting to see them again for the rest of her life—but Kanami _really_ didn't know what to do.

When she'd been Amelia, she'd never really been a social child—it'd only been when she'd become _Kanami_ , did she _really_ try to become a social child, since she had a family and all, and she couldn't possibly ignore them with the way the treated her and practically smothered her with love and (in Sena's case) an unhealthy amount of drool. Sure, put her in a room with an adult and she could maybe charm her way through with a smile and some words that she _knows_ would impress them; however, put her in a room with a _peer_ , someone who was much closer to her age group and who she wasn't related to by blood or deeply familiar with, Kanami would've been better off being shut off in the room with a book because at least she'd be able to entertain herself instead of curling up in a corner and hoping to get some needed sleep.

Point is, Kanami didn't know how to interact with children her age, even if she was technically older than them in terms of mentality. She hadn't had the, well, _practice_ for it, since her peers when she'd been Amelia hadn't really been all that willing to 'make friends' with her or anything, since they'd all been too busy with either their own lives or making her life a living hell.

But, remembering Sena—the Sena without a _Kanami_ , without _her_ —who'd always been bullied as a child because of his size, and who'd also been treated as a slave in return for his kindness to his so-called friends just so that he could fit it and shit. The Sena who'd grown up with only Mamori—sweet, protective, and all too kind and patient Mamori—by his side the entire time.

And really, it wouldn't be bad to have a friend like that, right?

* * *

It really wasn't her fault that she didn't recognize Anezaki Mamori. Her memories of the girl—or any anime character, to be general—had all been blurry—like, what color had her hair been again? Dark pink? Pinkish brown? Red? Or maybe brown? But wait, what about her eye color? Was it supposed to be blue or green?—and Kanami remembers that when she'd been Amelia, she had the habit of scrolling through fanart of the various characters in every manga she'd read to get a good grasp of what they really look like. Annoying thing was, most people got some hair colors and eye colors wrong, so some things were all jumbled up and Kanami really doesn't remember just what the hell this character's colors were supposed to be.

Heck, she didn't even know what the hell Agon's hair color was. Was it black with a purple sheen to it? Or was it just a very dark purple? But wait, wasn't it supposed to be brown or something? Maybe he just dyed it or something? Oh gosh, why the heck did Unsui have to be _bald?_ For all she knew, Agon could have black hair or something, or maybe a very dark green, and she'd never know.

Maybe _that_ was why Unsui shaved his hair off, because he was too ashamed of the eccentricity that was his hair color.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand.

"Ne, Anezaki-san," Kanami started off, harmlessly, with her voice as soft so as to not startle the obviously nervous girl. Their mothers had shooed them off to go play upstairs in her bedroom, and it seemed to Kanami that Anezaki wasn't really all that comfortable of the awkward silence that hovered over them. "What color is your hair?" She asked the greatest mystery of all.

Anezaki and Sena blinked at her question, the former tilting her head whilst the latter gave her an inquisitive look.

"I...I'm not really sure, Kobayakawa-san," Anezaki said, fingering her uniquely colored hair. "Okaa-chan says that it's dark pink, but otou-chan says that it's brown," she answered with a deep frown. "I don't really like it that much though," Anezaki admitted with a slight laugh, though Kanami didn't miss the way she'd thinned her lips afterwards, as if she'd swallowed something revolting.

But thankfully, Kanami didn't have to do anything at all to appease what seemed like Anezaki's dilemma of insecurity, since Sena did it for her.

"E-Eh?" her dearest older brother squeaked out, eyes wide and mouth agape. "B-But why?" He asked, looking quite stupefied as he uncertainly eyed Mamori's hair.

Anezaki's eyes softened as she gazed at Sena, before she furtively looked away and clenched her little hands into tiny fists. "You wouldn't understand," she answers, looking quite bitter and sad, as she purses her lips.

 _'Ah,'_ Kanami thought, recognizing the signs that Anezaki had exhibited. She'd seen it several times around her peers; she'd watched several anime characters go through it and successfully overcome it; heck, she was a victim of it her entire life. The signs of being _bullied_. She may be socially incapacitated to a degree, but she wasn't _dense_ enough to not notice the symptoms of something horrible that she herself had already gone through and _lived_.

And yet—...even if she knew the pains of being bullied, Kanami still had no idea what to say. If she pointed out that she too knew the pain of being bullied, then Mamori might get defensive and maybe she'll never want to talk to her again out of shame; if she told Anezaki that she needed to stand up for herself, then she'd just be a hypocrite herself and Anezaki might demand what did _she_ , a _three-year old_ , know what it's like and maybe she'll never want to talk to her again out of shame.

Suffice to say, Kanami was too paranoid to even _comfort_ Anezaki, that she never really took note of the chance that if she _did_ comfort Anezaki, then maybe she'd seal their friendship for good.

Luckily, Sena was there.

"W-Well," Sena started off nervously, playing with his fingers once again. " _I_ like your hair. I think it's p-p-pretty," he stammered out, his face a bright red hue, as his eyes strayed towards the ground.

Kanami watched as Anezaki's face turned crimson—and, Kanami noted with fascination, there was even steam oozing from how hot her face was.

"E-EH?!" Anezaki exclaimed, looking surprised yet all too embarrassed with Sena's confession.

 _'Well,'_ Kanami thought, seeing a chance that she could take to become closer with Anezaki, and also for the sole reason to see if her face can get any redder. She'd seen Sena turn a dark shade of red that was bordering on becoming black, so she wanted to see if other people could become like that as well. _'Gotta roll with it, I guess. Since she hasn't reacted negatively to Sena, then I guess it's ok to boost her confidence as well.'_

"It is," Kanami agreed, and Anezaki turned her gaze onto her. "You don't see that kind of hair color every day. I'm kinda jealous that your hair's prettier than mine," she said, jutting out her bottom lip and unleashing her pout of kawaii-ness. Sena had the puppy dog eyes, hands down, but _she_ had the pout of kawaii-ness mastered, especially when she had the body of an incredibly cute girl now.

"T-That's not true!" Anezaki protested, her face getting ever redder— _'Huh,'_ Kanami thought. _'Is it supposed to be a rule or something that anime kids should be forever cute?'_ —"K-Kobayakawa-san has better hair than m-me. I m-mean, both of you have fluffier and softer hair than me, a-and both of you have _normal_ hair," she stammered out.

Huh. Who would have guessed that the always confident Anezaki Mamori had been a really insecure little girl, and because of her _hair_?

Sena looked confused by Anezaki's words, but Kanami perfectly understood. "Yeah, but yours is better," she insisted stubbornly. "Brown is so normal that you can see it everyday," she said, combing her fingers through her hair to emphasize her point. "But you don't see hair like yours everyday, which makes you kinda...unique," Kanami tested the word, remembering the correct Japanese pronunciation.

"...U-Unique?" Anezaki questioned, looking confused.

"One of a kind, or, well, special, I guess," Kanami responded with a shrug.

"S-Special?" Anezaki spoke aloud, looking even more bemused. "But I'm...I'm nothing special," she muttered, looking down at the ground.

"That's not true!" Sena surprisingly exclaimed, making both girls turn to face the boy who'd immediately shrunken back in embarrassment. "I-I mean, okaa-chan told me that everybody's special, no matter who they are and they look like," he stuttered out. "I-I mean, she told me that what matters is what's on the outside than on the inside...wait, no, that's not what she said," Sena looked incredibly confused with himself as he began anxiously muttering to himself.

Kanami, who'd taken pity on her twin, spoke up. "What he means to say is that it doesn't matter what you look like on the outside, Anezaki-san, but what you are on the inside" she said, before smiling daintily. "But that doesn't matter, because you're pretty both on the inside and outside," she said, before flushing at her embarrassing words.

Amelia would have shot herself before saying those kind of words to somebody else.

"I..." Anezaki honestly had no words to say, at a complete loss with herself. "...Thank you," she murmured, her tone grateful and sounding a little too watery for it to be normal.

Kanami's smile just widened as she hooked her arm around Sena's, this time being the one to snake her hand into his and intertwine their fingers, squeezing softly afterwards. He squeezed back without a word.

 _I'll protect you,_ she wanted to tell him. Instead, she told him that she loved him and gave him a peck on the cheek.

Sena just blushed at her public display of affection, and complained about it by babbling incomprehensibly—but he didn't wipe his cheek, Kanami noted, feeling warmth settle in her gut.

Looking back at Anezaki, Kanami noticed that the girl was starting to feel uncomfortable and awkward around them right now. Oops. Kanami didn't mean to leave Anezaki out. Mustering a sheepish smile, Kanami offfered, "Hey, d'you wanna play board games?"

Anezaki looked hesitant to accept, but she nodded meekly.

And so, after both Kanami and Sena had managed to dig out some old board games that'd belonged to their mother when she herself was a child from underneath their bed, all three of them decided on a game and began playing, all the whilst conversing with each other about a few topics.

By the end of the day, when her mother's friends had to go, Anezaki including, Kanami had been surprised to catch Anezaki quietly asking her mother if they could stay a little bit longer. When her Asuka-oba had inquired why, Anezaki had blushed deeply and whispered her answer in her mother's ear. Kanami didn't know what to feel she saw Asuka-oba give Sena and her an indescribable look that didn't seem negative in any way—more of a combination of relieved and happy and some other emotion that Kanami was unfamiliar with—before she turned to their mother and asked if it was alright if they could stay for another hour.

It was a good thing that their mother had missed the company of her friends, since she'd whole-heartedly agreed.

So after she and Sena said good bye to her mother's other friends, they closed the door and turned to face Anezaki, who was fidgeting from where she stood just a few feet away from them with their parents right behind her.

When Kanami glanced at Sena, she'd seen his expression brightened.

"You're staying?" He enthusiastically asked, practically vibrating from where he stood.

Anezaki nodded her head slowly. "Yes. I asked okaa-chan, and she told me that we could stay a little bit longer," she said, before looking down at her feet. "...If thats okay with you guys," she said after a moment.

Kanami caught their mothers looking at them with completely interest, clearly expecting something to happen between the three of them. Mentally sighing at what seemed to be the pressure of the atmosphere increasing, Kanami just gave Anezaki an amiable smile and— _'Kami, I might regret this, but fuck it,'_ —hesitantly reached over to take the other girl's hands in her own, hoping that Anezaki didn't take any kind of offense to it. "That'd be great, Anezaki-san!" She cheered, hoping that she acted like an excited three year old. "If you want, we can play some card games! I know a few that otou-chan taught me," she suggested.

Anezaki immediately tensed up when her hands had been taken into an unfamiliar grip, but she gradually relaxed once Kanami began talking. "That'd be nice," she said, giving a brilliant smile that made the sun pale to how bright it was, in Kanami's opinion. "And...um, please, call me Mamori," she said softly, abashedly looking away.

"Then you can call me Kana," Kanami offered, and the other girl slowly nodded her head in acceptance. "And you can call my brother Sena too then. He won't mind," she added, turning to face her older brother and giving him a look that just _dared_ him to protest against her.

Wisely, Sena kept his mouth shut and just rapidly nodded his head when Mamori turned to look at him.

What a beautiful start to a beautiful friendship, Kanami guessed and hoped.

* * *

 **EXTRA:**

Kanami swore she'd thought Mamori's last name was Haizaki, not Anezaki, which made her a bit skeptical at first about the other girl if Mamori was Eyeshield 21's Mamori—until that is she remembered that Anezaki was really her last name.

Woops. Wrong anime. Haizaki belonged to KNB, if she remembered correctly.

...Or was it Haikyuu, or that swimming anime?

Gosh, Kanami really needed to set her priorities straight.

* * *

 _Beta? What beta? Is it something you can eat? Does it taste good? Sorry for the mistakes and what nots, and could you be a dear and point it out for me? I haven't slept in a while and I'm really psyched to update haha. Btw, shout out to those who've reviewed, favorited and followed. I'll be sure to reply to those who've reviewed after I get some well deserved sleep._


	3. Chapter 3

**Blessings in Disguise**

 **Written by:** ** _CherryDrug_**

 **Disclaimer** **:** _"I am not the liable owner of the series or franchise of one Eyeshield 21. I do not own it's original plot, it's characters, the public figures, events, places and etcetera. I do, however, own the plot of this story, as well as my OC, one Kobayakawa Kanami. Arigatou for not suing me :)."_

 **Rating** _: This'll be a T-rated fan fiction, so those who're expecting sex or mature themes, please wait for a while ahaha. I'm not yet ready to corrupt my virgin mind with lemons or erotic stories just so that I could please all you perverts, ehehe ;)_

 **Genre** _: Family, Friendship, Adventure, Drama, a spice of Humor, and Romance some time down the road :)_

 **Characters** _: Erm...there'll be a lot in the future, but for now, Kobayakawa Kanami will be our main character for this story of ours :)_

 **Summary:** _I wasn't somebody important that died from a tragic yet all too coincidental accident, with no family to bury me and no friends to mourn my passing; whereas she had been unexpectedly born into a family that still welcomed her with open arms, grew up with a supposedly fictional main character for an elder twin brother. Dear God, why mix us together? SI!OC-as-Sena's-twin._

 **Pairings** _: Still deciding. But it won't be a Sena/All fic,_ **that** _I promise. Though there'll be some hints of it, of course (we're all yaoi lovers deep down, admit it peeps.). To be honest, I'm not really sure on who to pair Sena off with. Suzuna is a definite, ofc, but it'd be nice to get an opinion of who Sena can be paired of with as well y'know. I like playing with couples, huehuehuehuehue._

 **AN:** _Just another chapter that looks useless (trust me, it's not. There's a lot of ripples going on here that Kanami isn't even aware she's causing. But that's what happens if you stick a girl form our world into the world of an anime she hadn't returned to in several years. This OC is a testament to how screwed we'd be if we were suddenly stuck into a random anime world without even having the time to arm ourselves with knowledge.) Hope you'll know who the next E21 character that'll be introduced next!_

 _And d'awwww! I couldn't resist crossdressing here. You'll see soon. Sadly, it won't be permanent though D':_

* * *

 **Chapter 3**

* * *

Her first nightmare happens only a few days after her meeting with Mamori.

It starts off easy enough— _with a haze of darkness clouding her entire vision, a sign that she's having another dreamless sleep for just a few, short, and very brief moments before she's pulled into the land of the living with a cruel sun that practically blinds her through the window and demonic birds chirping for their all worth like alarm clocks_ —and Kanami's fooled by it, because she hasn't had any dreams or nightmares since she's become _Kanami_.

She should have expected it— _really_ , she should have, because when she'd been Amelia, she'd practically been insomniac several days of the month, and she couldn't afford to buy any medications to help her with her sleep—but _no_ , she doesn't, because she'd plagued with the illusion that _Kanami_ doesn't have a single dirty spot in her flawless life.

She was wrong.

Because when the darkness suddenly transformed into dark, shadowy figures with white, hollow eyes and their mouths twisted open into a mockery of a grin with their sharp fangs glinting from underneath light that had suddenly appeared—and then, Kanami realizes that she's _there_ , and that these monstrous shadows are _looking_ right at her, their claws curving inward as they make their way towards her, and Kanami realizes that she has to _run_.

The thought _why_ never comes up, because she's too terrified— _but for what? but for why?_ She doesn't think, she just turns around, and begins to _move_. But, no matter how much she runs, no matter how much she stretches her legs, pushes herself, feels her lungs engulfing into flames, feel her chest heaving with a heavy sensation that doesn't quite feel like pain, the distance between her and those monsters never widens.

She knows she's doomed until one of them reaches out to her, their large claws encircling about her waist and _gripping_ it until she can feel hysteria and panic swell up from within her chest, and there's the odd sensation of pain flaring up from her sides from where the claws are mercilessly digging into her skin— _it'sjustadreamit'sjustadreamit'sjustadream_ —and she's suddenly hoisted back up, only to come face to face with the monster.

And then—then the pain bleeds away, and she _can't_ feel _anything_ , like she should have, because _you can't feel pain in dreams_.

But she's scared now, because up close, the monster is _really_ terrifying.

It's eyes aren't hollow, because she can see a small dark dot that should be its pupil that's surrounded by a _really_ vast ocean of white— _and dear Kami, why the hell is she just looking at the monster's eyes, she should be **screaming**! Scream, Kanami! Scream!_ —and then, the monster just _opens_ its mouth, and lookie there, _even more deathly fangs_ , and Kanami musters the energy to open her mouth to unleash a girly shriek before the monster shoves her into his mouth and she's just—

She isn't crunched into a disgusting blend of blood, bones, and flesh, thank you very much—instead, she's plunged into a dark abyss that doesn't just ends, and she keeps on falling until she's grown tired of screaming and is instead just staring down at what she hopes is the end, having already accepted her faith that she'd die in this room and she'd finally be _ridden_ of this hellish nightmare.

And then—then Kanami's suddenly in a room, but it's just not _any_ room, she's in her old room in the orphanage, with the familiar paint peeling off the walls and the holes in the floor that are artistically hidden by placing a few of her thick books over it. The freakiest part of this is that there's an unfamiliar mirror in the room, with its borders all cracked up and barely hanging there, and when she looks at it, she sees her reflection.

But it's not Kanami she sees—oh no, it's _Amelia_ she sees, the girl she'd once been, with her curly dark hair that's the epitome of a disaster, and her dark green eyes that are wide with shock. Even her normally tanned skin has taken on a pale hue, as if all the blood had been sucked dry from it.

And then she notices the blood drenched all over her shirt—as if someone had used her shirt as their own canvas to create a morbid picture of a red sky with a white background—and the injuries on herself. It takes her a moment to realize _from where_ had the blood come from, _from where_ she'd gotten these injuries.

It was on the day she'd died, when the speeding car had rammed up to her side and had almost immediately killed her right after she'd gotten one last beautiful look of the sky and a couple of screaming people looking at her, with just a few rushing over to her side, one even going so far as to put her, a total stranger, head in their lap, before every image slowly turns grey and every sound becomes mute and then, as if the light switch had been flipped, everything goes dark for her and she can't _see_ or _hear_ or _feel_ anything anymore because she's _dead_.

She pulls herself up to her feet, before making her way to stand in front of the mirror, where the blood leaking down the side of her head from what appears to be a rather nasty flesh wound that shows all the nasty and disgusting muscular fibers just sitting right underneath skin lays. She experimentally digs her finger into the wound—and _nope_ , she can't feel anything, but she still winces at the disgusting sound it makes—she pulls her bloodied finger away, extremely mortified with herself because _she'd just fingered her head, and what the hell, that sounded wrong_.

She just examines herself, and she smiles blandly at how funny her brain works—to even conjure up an image of her dying self, when she didn't even know what exactly she looked like when she'd died. She raises a hand to place it on the mirror, noticing how it feels cool underneath her touch, before she looks at her reflection in the eye and tells herself,

"You're a real piece of work, aren'tcha?"

Only—only, it's not _her_ that talks first.

Spooked, Kanami pulls her hand back, and she's horrified to see that the hand reflecting her own hand had suddenly curled around her wrist, preventing her from pulling the appendage back no matter how much she stubbornly tugs on it.

Her eyes snap _downwards_ from her trapped hand to the pair of wide, _bright_ green eyes that are looking up at her.

And oh no, that's not Amelia looking back at her anymore. No, it's someone strange yet familiar to her all the same.

A pale, heart-shaped face with chubby cheeks framed by long locks of dark brown hair and a pair of bright, green eyes that are _twinkling_.

 _Twinkling._ Like fucking _stars_. Like fucking _Dumbledore_. What. The. Hell.

Contrary to her thoughts, she says out loud, "What. The. Fuck." With the periods. Of course with the periods, because she needs to emphasize how freaked out she is.

The mirror isn't reflecting Amelia anymore—not anymore, because it's reflecting an image of Kanami to her, an image of young, three-year old Kanami that's smiling up at her. But it's not a sweet smile, oh no it isn't, it's a _deranged_ smile. The kind of smile that says that I'm capable of cutting you up into itty bitty pieces so that I can grill them into delicious meat cutlets.

And she promptly thinks— _nope, time to get away from this sicko._

Only problem is, _sicko_ doesn't relent in letting go of her hand. In fact, _it_ just smiles even wider at her, and dear Kami, what kind of teeth are those, because it's all sharp and fanged and _bloodied up_.

"Oh no," The other Kanami says, shaking its head. "You're not getting away _that_ easily, especially when you've stolen _my life_."

And then everything snaps into place, and she can't think of anything else. "What?" She says, dumstruck.

It just continues to smile at her—and then, freakiest thing ever, it just _steps out_ of the mirror, and she has to step back to keep up the distance between them, because no way in _hell_ will she ever allow this thing to ever get close to her.

"You don't know who I am?" It says, tilting its head, but its grip on her wrist only tightens up, a fair sign that it'd been irritated. "Especially when you're occupying _my_ body? When you're living _my_ life?" It says, and she just furrows her eyebrows, because what?

"What are you talking about?" Kanami says, to the, well, _other_ Kanami. "The only body I'm occupying is _my_ body. And I'm pretty sure that I'm living _my own_ life," she snaps.

But it doesn't even blink at her angry reply. "You mean the body and life _you stole_ ," it says, and she freezes up. "You know, I was supposed to be Kanami," it says nonchalantly, and Kanami flinches at those words. "I was supposed to have a loving mother, a loving father, and a loving older brother," it continues on, and Kanami knows _exactly_ where this is going, and she can't help the guilt that grows up inside of her at that. "But instead, it's _you_ who has it all," it sneers at her. " _You stole everything from me!_ " It screeches, and the mirror behind it shatters into a thousand pieces.

Kanami screams, jumping away and finally managing to rip her wrist away from the other Kanami. She lands on her bed, and she promptly scoots back until her back hits the wall behind her, distancing herself as far away as she can from the other Kanami.

Or the _real_ Kanami.

" _You've already lived your life!_ " It screams at her, burying its hands into its hair, as it glares at her with so, _so_ much hatred. " _So why do you get to have another chance?! Why did you have to steal my life?! It was supposed to be **mine**! Mine, mine, **MINE**!" _ It screams so loudly, that Kanami has to cover her ears.

Kanami honestly doesn't know what to say, other than, "Sorry."

 _"SORRY?!_ " It says, its tone murderous. " _YOU'RE SORRY FOR STEALING MY LIFE?! SORRY'S NOT GONNA GIVE IT BACK!_ " It screams at her with all the high-pitchedness of a young child.

And Kanami does think about—about giving her second life back to its rightful owner, but she doesn't know _how_ to, and she's scared of what would happen to her if she _did_ give this life back.

" _YOU'RE JUST A MISERABLE GIRL! A GIRL THAT NOBDOY WILL EVER LOVE AND MISS EVEN WHEN YOU'RE DEAD!"_ It screams, and Kanami flinches at that. " _DO YOU EVEN THINK YOUR PARENTS OR SENA WILL EVER LOVE YOU IF THEY FOUND OUT ABOUT THE TRUTH?! THAT YOU'RE NOT THEIR REAL KANAMI?! THAT YOU'RE JUST SOME MURDERER WHO KILLED THEIR REAL DAUGHTER AND SISTER?!"_ It shrieks, and Kanami—

—Kanami knows the answer to that one. If her parents now and Sena would ever find out about the truth, then they'd stop _looking_ at her as if she was one of their own; instead, they'd look at her as if she was some kind of _monster_ , some kind of abomination. And that— _that_ just scares Kanami to the very core of her heart, because she doesn't _want_ her family to stop loving her, especially when she'd _finally_ gained one.

So, sick of hearing all these lies that are not really lies at all, Kanami _screams right back_.

"SHUT UP!" She screams, putting her hands over her ears so that she could block out the other Kanami's accusations _that are so true_. "SHUT UP! SHUT UP! _SHUT UP!"_ She continues screaming, and she's pretty sure she's crying by now. "I DIDN'T ASK FOR ANOTHER LIFE! I DIDN'T ASK FOR ANY OF THIS! SO STOP IT AND SHUT UP!" She ends, her entire figure trembling as she continues crying.

When she open her eyes, she's met face to face with the other Kanami, their noses nearly touching, and Kanami promptly screams and pulls her head back, where the back of her head thumps out loudly with the wall behind her. Oddly enough, she doesn't feel pain from _this_ one.

Unfazed, the other Kanami just looks up at her, its entire face devoid of any emotion.

"Then give it back," it says so simply. "Give back my life then," it says, placing its hands on Kanami's knees.

"I—" Kanami starts off, before the words she's about to say promptly dies off in her throat when she watches the other Kanami suddenly _transform_ into a combination of itself and the monstrous being that had swallowed Kanami into this hellhole.

Small, dark pupils surrounded by a vast ocean of white stare down at her, framed by a pair of long dark locks that look more like tentacles made out of shadows. Claws reach out to her, a horrifying mix between a human's hand and some demonic creature, with the way black slime oozed out from its open pores.

" _Give. It. Back._ " It demands, before its hands suddenly surges forward to either plunge themselves into Kanami's chest or wrap around her neck to strangle the life out of her.

And then— _then_ Kanami screams one last time—and _wakes up_.

* * *

When she wakes up, she doesn't bolt upright in bed like most people would do. No, the process of waking up to her is slow and normal, even if its from a nightmare. The darkness surrounding her haze just clears up, distorting the image of the monstrous creature about to kill her, making it possible for her to open her eyes and tiredly blink out the sleep and morning stars from her eyes.

Her entire head is throbbing painfully, and it feels as if a train had just jackhammered into it. Several times.

She stares blankly up at the ceiling of Sena's bedroom, and becomes aware of her older brother plastered to her side, with his right leg and arm thrown over her body and his head tucked into the crook of her neck, his soft hair brushing against her jaw and cheek.

Her throat promptly tightens up when she remembers the other Kanami's words.

 _Do you think your parents or Sena will ever love you if they found out about the truth?_

Kanami knows that it's just a dream, that it's just her imagination working _against_ her, because the other Kanami she'd just dreamt up was just a person her mind had conjured up to fuck with her, to tell her that, _oh no, you're not living this life of yours easy peasy. Someone's gotta make it hard for you, and that someone's gonna be **me**_.

But Kanami can't help but feel guilty about the other Kanami's words—because all of it had been the truth.

Kanami shudders deeply, taking in a long and deep breath to calm down her nerves before she exhales through her mouth, still feeling the chills crawling down her spine.

She moves to get up slowly, pushing aside her brother's— _you stole my brother from me!_ —arm and leg off of her, being extra careful not to wake him up. She clambers down the bed silently, wondering what'll she do. She has the urge to go to her parents' bedroom so that she could sleep in between them, because in their old apartment, she and Sena would normally be curled up between their parents' bodies whenever it was raining outside, but she opts against it, still feeling too guilty to sleep anywhere near her parents or Sena.

And besides, she just doesn't feel like sleeping right now, especially after having a nightmare like that. She needs to cool down, to calm her nerves , so she opts to go back to her _own_ bedroom, where she could possibly flip through some of her books and learn a few more terms. She's beginning to get the hang of Kanji now, but only a little bit of it. It still confuses her, because most of them have double meanings and the same character, but she'll get by it.

She stays awake until the sun comes up, flipping through a book after having read what could amount to possibly a little more than a dozen children's books, and Sena is the first one to find her, an unhappy look on his face.

Kanami sees his glossy eyes and promptly wraps her arms around his shoulders when he sits down beside her so that he could lean against her.

In response, Sena just wraps his arms around her waist and tucks his head in the crook of her neck, silently babbling about how he'd woken up without her and how scared he was that he was alone and that she'd left him, and that he'd feared that that she'd disappeared and that he'd never see her again.

She can both hear and feel her heart cracking at both his words and the utterly sad and heartbroken tone of his voice.

When they pull away, Sena looks at her in the eye, his cheeks stained with tears and his eyes puffy and red from crying into her now wet neck and shoulder. "Don't leave me again," he says, voice coming out as a plea. "Please."

Kanami just swallows, feeling the way her throat and chest constrict tightly, but she manages to smile at him and promise to him that she'd never leave him again until he woke up.

* * *

She has a nightmare again a few days later—she's on the floor, surrounded by a bunch of kids that she'd grown up with in the orphanage and in school, and being beaten to death by them as they all tell her how worthless she is, how much of a liar she is, how much of a monster she is, etc, with the other Kanami floating above her, an eerily pleased smile on its lips as it watches her pain.

She wakes up again; this time, with cold sweat trailing down her face, and guilt gnawing at her insides once again.

But she doesn't get up. She doesn't get out of bed to go to her own room and calm down her nerves. Instead, she just shudders one last time, steels her nerves and turns to face Sena so that she could throw her arm and leg over him until her brother's forced to turn his body and lie on his back so that she could tuck her head into the crook of his neck, close her eyes and just _wait_.

Wait for him to wake up, because she promised him that she wouldn't leave him until he woke up.

The nightmares keep on coming. The sleepless nights keep on coming. And Kanami continues to stay in bed with her older brother, because she _promised_.

Kanami doesn't want to see the same look of utter despair on Sena's face when he'd found her in her bedroom after having to wake up alone in bed. No nightmare is worth seeing her dearly loved brother cry.

* * *

Apparently, Mamori and her family lived close to where Kanami and her family lived in, which means that Mamori and her mother were able to frequently drop by their place more than once a week—or, if you wanted to be specific, Mamori and her mother would drop by at least four times a week by their place—and their mother was absolutely delighted with having one of her friends come over to have some tea, cookies, and some dirty gossip about some person.

Usually, Kanami wouldn't bother listing off any of the other insignificant visits that Mamori and her mother had come by for—but that particular visit that day, in the middle of February, was _not_ insignificant in the least.

Because something _changed_ that day, and Kanami had felt what most likely had been the ripples she'd caused by simply being _alive_ in this world that should be fictional.

Their mothers were in the kitchen, baking some hot delicacies that would warm up their tummies from the cold atmosphere outside. She, Mamori and Sena had just been outside a little while ago building at least three snowmen (or at least what their original intent _was_. The snowmen were terrible, much more resembling snow that had been pervertedly stacked up into a jumbled mess about Kanami's height before they decorated it with leaves and twigs. One had six 'leaf eyes' whilst another one had, like, four arms. Their last one had been the only one that actually had the correct number of eyes and arms for a snowman, but they'd run out of things that they could use for its nose so it had been nose-less) but they were now inside of the house, wrapped up in comforters and sitting in front of the T.V. and watching some cartoon that involved a group of school girls that could transform into soldiers of love that fought evil by night and chased love by day.

It was Sailor Moon, Mamori's apparently favorite T.V. show, and Kanami was incredibly entranced by Tuxedo Man.

Whilst Mamori and she watched Sailor Moon, Sena had already taken a spot on the couch and had promptly dozed off for his daily nap, blatantly uninterested in some 'girly cartoons' as he'd claimed.

They were sipping their own mugs of warm milk, when Mamori suddenly started off the conversation once the commercials began on T.V.

"I really like you a lot, Kana-chan," she starts off, and Kanami _so_ doesn't think of that as a confession, because they're not even _five_ years old yet. "And...And I feel as if I should tell you this since we're...really close," she trails off, and Kanami's _proud_ that Mamori's words doesn't break even once.

Because it'd taken quite a while for Mamori to slowly grow out of herself and gain a little bit of confidence and self-assurance for herself that she had managed to get rid of that damn stuttering of hers. It had taken eight weeks—eight _long_ and _grueling_ weeks that were so, _so_ worth it, because now Mamori could look both her and Sena in the eye whilst talking and without a break in her words—for Mamori to grow accustomed enough to both she and Sena that she didn't hesitate anymore in suggesting any ideas of what they should do next, and in scolding them whenever they'd done something naughty.

So yes. Kanami's pretty proud of Mamori to the point that in what Mamori sees them as 'really close,' Kanami sees them as _friends_. "We're friends, you mean," Kanami corrects before taking a sip from her mug, and _yum_.

"I..." Mamori seems at a loss for words for a moment, before her cheeks flush a pretty pink color and she's smiling a dainty little smile that could set the Earth itself in _flames_. "Yes. We're friends," she accepts their relationship as Kanami sees it with delight and happiness.

Kanami nods, satisfied.

( _Amelia's never had a friend before. So, officially, Mamori was her first real friend. For both her first_ **and** _her second life._

 _Oh Kami, she can just tell this'll appear in another one of her nightmares, where the other Kanami will be blaming her for becoming friends with Mamori when it itself could have been friends with Mamori if she hadn't stolen it's original life.)_

"And I feel that, well, as _friends_ , I should tell you that many people don't like me very much," she says it, as if its an offer.

And Kanami can understand the meaning laying underneath those words— _look, almost everybody doesn't like me, so I'm giving you a chance to join them and hate me as well before you regret being my friend_ —because she's read enough manga and watched enough anime to understand those kinds of words. "...And?" Kanami says, because it's the only thing that comes to mind for her.

"And they always tell me mean things about my hair," Mamori continues, looking down sadly at the floor as she pats her hair.

"But you have pretty hair," Kanami says automatically. It's a thing she and Sena have learned to instill into themselves—whenever Mamori touches her hair, they tell her it's pretty, because it makes her happy and less sad. Unsurprisingly, Sena came up with this tactic, because the little tyke _adores_ Mamori and her talent with being able to wield a toy robot and re-enact a scene from his favorite T.V. show. "I bet they're just jealous," Kanami says snidely and it's the truth. Kids these age are usually saying those kinds of things to other kids because they're just jealous of what the other kid has that they don't.

"Yeah, but...all of the girls in my school has really pretty hair too," Mamori protests, and Kanami feels like smacking the palm of her hand against her forehead.

In Kanami's own and personal opinion, Mamori was a very good and very kind person by heart. And it wasn't only because she'd been raised to be considerate of other people's feelings, but it was because it was in her very _nature_ to just simply be kind. Sadly, because of that kind nature of hers, Mamori didn't have a single bad bone inside of her, and Kanami found it loathsome because it also meant that Mamori didn't have one single bad bone inside of her so that she could pummel her bullies into the ground for all the trouble they'd caused.

Of course, Kanami hadn't told Mamori to stand up for herself, because _then_ she herself would be the biggest fucking hypocrite in the entire universe. Rule number one if you wanted to be as inconspicuous as possible: _don't_ attract attention to yourself by confronting your bullies, especially if they were more than three times the number of allies you yourself had. If you did so, then you'd just most likely branded yourself as a punching bag they can use for whenever the pleased. When she'd been Amelia, she'd kept this rule close to her heart, and had even been the person that even teachers forgot about, she was just _that_ good. Too bad her bullies didn't forget her face, just her name.

"Why do they not like you?" Kanami decided to ask, because she needed to find the root of it all.

Mamori looks indecisive and unsure of how to respond. "I'm...not really sure," she admits. "It just started on my first day to school. But I think it's because of my hair and how I introduced myself to each one of them."

"What," Kanami states, not ask. "You introduced yourself to _each_ one of them?" She asks this time. "As in, one by one?"

Mamori nods. "Yes. Otou-chan taught me that a good relationship is one that starts with a handshake," she says, and Kanami _really_ wants to point out that Mamori neither shook her and Sena's hand when _they'd_ first met and that they'd been good friends for quite a while afterwards. "And I also tried helping them with their numbers and letters, but they didn't want to. They all told me that they couldn't understand what I was saying," she says sadly.

Kanami doesn't resist the urge to slap her palm against her forehead this time. Of course. _Of fucking course_. Because not only is Mamori being bullied for her strange hair, but also because for her _straightforwardness_ and _brain_. It's a simple miscommunication, really. Smart people usually make the mistake that everyone around them think the same way they do; in turn, when they're offering help to other people, aforementioned other people would just feel inferior and being made fun of when they couldn't understand a single thing being taught to them by someone their age.

Of course. No wonder Mamori, who's so kind and helpful and just as much as an adorable puff of fluff as Sena, is being bullied. She's unknowingly and unintentionally making other people feel bad about their intellect.

"Did one of them call you a smarty-pants or know-it-all?" Kanami asks, just to makes sure.

"Um," Mamori scrunches her eyebrows. "A few called me a know-it-all, but not a smarty-pants," she says. "What does that mean?" She asks, tilting her head.

Kanami resists the urge to sigh. Really, really deeply. "It just means that you're just _really_ smart, but they're saying it in a mean way," she explains, and Mamori just looks down sadly at the floor with a pouty frown.

"Oh," Mamori murmurs, looking and sounding like a puppy that had just been kicked out of its home and into the wild, wild wilderness to fend for itself, all the while having to find shelter from the freezing rain and the murderous predators chasing after it.

"Does Asuka-oba and your otou-chan know?" Kanami asks, because Kanami _knows_ that if she had parents and if she was being bullied, then she'd totally tell them about it. Maybe. Depending on the situation, of course.

Mamori shakes her head, softly biting down on her bottom lip.

"Why not?" Kanami presses on, taking another sip of her warm drink.

"...Because there are times where I have to face my own battles alone," Mamori whispers, and Kanami's about to call bullshit on her words until the other girl finishes off with a, "My otou-chan told me that."

Kanami doesn't have any words to use after that—and it's a good thing that Sailor Moon came back on because Mamori's attention is easily ripped off of her and transferred the screen of the T.V. where Usagi has transformed and is about to save the day once again after being swept off her feet by Tuxedo Man. And Kanami doesn't say anything else after that—not a single peep to protest against Mamori's logic—because, well, damn, you just _don't_ correct whatever a parent teaches their own child. _Especially_ when what they're teaching is _correct_.

But heck, a four year old already thinking about such complicated stuff is really impressive, and Kanami's a little bit dumbstruck by how _smart_ Mamori is to even understand what her otou-chan had been talking about.

So when the commercial comes back on right when Usagi's about to be dealt with what should be a deadly blow right before Tuxedo Mask saves her, Kanami speaks up in a soft and gentle voice. "I'll always be here if you need me," she reminds Mamori—because _Kami_ , when she'd been bullied, all she'd ever wanted was someone to lean on; and really, this is the only thing Kanami can give to Mamori right now. The comfort of knowing that even if she'll be facing her own battles alone, she can always turn around and see who's waiting right behind her, ready to help and ready to _give_.

Mamori just gives her a smile—a grateful yet sad one. "Thank you, Kana-chan. But..." She trails off, and Kanami catches Mamori's eyes landing on Sena's sleeping form. "Can you keep this a secret between the two of us? I don't want Sena-kun knowing about this," she says, her smile becoming sheepish as she clasps her hands together. "I mean, I don't want him to look at me as I'm weak," she says softly. "Because I'm not," she finishes, and the resolution in her voice is so strong that Kanami has to blink to process Mamori's words.

And then Kanami understands Mamori—because she's just like her. They both want Sena to look at them as not just girls who are always crying and fretting over the littlest of things. No, they want Sena to look at them for _guidance_ , for _help_ , for _anything_ , because when Sena looks at them, with those big brown eyes of his, as if you're the only thing in the world that matters, you can't help but fall in love with him.

He's just _that_ uke.

Kanami swears that it's no wonder there are so many stories about Sena having a harem of men after his heels. He's just so fucking lovable that if she wasn't his sister, then she'd have him as her _husband_ , because _hello?_ Sena would totally be the best husband there ever was, and their babies would be absolutely adorable. In fact, Kanami is pretty sure that in this supposedly fictional world she's been shoved into, Sena would have a harem of men after his heels by the time he's in his second year of highschool. If not, then he'd probably have that cute cheerleader girl who seems to always wear rollerblades as his girlfriend, but Kanami's pretty adamant about the harem of men after his heels.

She's always been a yaoi lover. Always have been, and always will be. It's a simple fact about her that will never change once she's touched the holy grail.

But Kanami does have one question for Mamori. "Then why are you telling me all this?"

And when Mamori looks at her in the eye—her not quite blue yet not quite green gaze completely serious—and scoots closer to where Kanami is sitting until they're shoulder to shoulder, Kanami honestly doesn't know what to expect from the other girl.

"It's because I trust you," Mamori says, and Kanami tenses up at that. "I trust you more than I trust Sena-kun because I feel as if you'd understand me more, and also because Kana-chan is smarter too," she says, laughing a little bit, and Kanami snorts as well at that, managing to relax just a tiny bit. "And it's also because I want us to be as close as our okaa-chans are," she admits, fumbling with the warm mug in her grasp.

Kanami just stares wordlessly at Mamori, unable to form a single word for a moment before she recomposes her head and steels her nerves. "I'd like that," and Kanami does. She says it so wholeheartedly that it feels as if she's pouring her entire heart and soul into those three simple words; despite the fact that in her head, there are red alarms blaring wildly at the consequences of her actions by just simple _breathing_ , and the words _holy shit_ and _fuuuuuck_ are revolving about her train of thought in three different languages.

(She knows how to speak Spanish too. It was kind of a requirement in highschool, and she doesn't quite regret devoting most of her time to it because now she's a semi-master of one of the most sexiest languages in the entire world. The other two languages are kinda obvious.)

* * *

Kanami sees that just by simply living and breathing, she's changed a whole lot of things as well as learned a whole lot more about the only characters of Eyeshield 21 that she knows. She remembers that Shuuma, her father, should have originally been a lawyer, but since she'd been born, they'd encountered some problems in their finances, so he'd taken a gamble and invested half of their savings into a starting business of a trustworthy friend of his. Luckily, the business hadn't gone bankrupt or anything, but instead had steadily grown from what it'd originally been to a ten-floored corporation that dealt in dealerships and what not. Instead of having become a lawyer, Shuuma was one of the board members of said corporation and earned quite an impressive amount every month.

Oh, and her father apparently likes coffee-frappes with whip cream and sprinkles and all instead of brewed coffee. Huh. Who knew.

Concerning Mihae and Sena, Kanami has no clue what she'd changed about them, but she just _knows_ that in the future, she'll be the sole reason for an unexplainable change about them that just happened so naturally that is shouldn't have happened canonically but it _did._

Because ever SI!OC always manages to screw with the timeline in some way. Kanami's done her research, so she's not so naive as to think otherwise.

But Kanami holds a lot more information about them compared to their own wiki page. Her mother doesn't like to cook, she likes to _bake_ , so she always makes it a point to have at least any meal of the day coming fresh from the oven; also, her mother's a _beast_ when it comes to bath time. Both she and Sena have to take a bath at least twice a day, one in the morning and one in the evening. Sena always wails about taking a second bath; frankly, Kanami feels like wailing as well, because she's sick and tired of _shivering her naked little ass_ in the middle of the hallway whilst waiting for their mother pull Sena away from the sink he's probably gripping onto as if he'd die if he let it go.

And Sena doesn't like taking baths. He absolutely _detests_ it, and it's a legendary and absolute fact in their household. Kanami can see that Sena is a very eccentric child—the kid strips to his birthday suit on a daily basis. What do _you_ think? And the only reason Mamori hasn't seen little Sena-kun just yet is because Sena only strips down to his naked butt _after_ she leaves, claiming that Mamori shouldn't see little Sena-kun because okaa-chan said it'd be wrong and improper—but he does have his normalities sometimes, such as taking his ever so sacred nap a day, and his fondness for cats. He claims that one day, he'll own a hundred cats.

Kanami hopes to see the day her older brother grows old, surrounded by both his collection of cats and his harem of men. She just _hopes_ she'll live to see the day.

But it's Mamori who Kanami seems to have the biggest impact on—and it's _wrong_ , because it's supposed to be _Sena_ who's supposed to have the biggest impact on Mamori. But, well, it was never really said that in the manga, or in the anime, or in Mamori's own wiki page, that Sena had been a rather influential person in Mamori's life when she'd be the one growing up. In fact, it'd been the opposite, with Mamori being the surrogate older sibling and defender of bullies to Sena and having the biggest influence on his life sans his parents.

Well, in _canon_ that is. Kanami doesn't exactly know how much she fucked up the timeline this time by offering her friendship to Mamori, but she doesn't really regret it one bit. What's done is done, and all Kanami can do is to make up some really good back-up plans if she so happens to completely fuck up with the timeline that, say, Mamori chooses to go to another highschool instead of Deimon, which in turn makes _Sena_ go to whichever highschool Mamori's chosen, which in turn means _no fucking Eyeshield 21._

Kanami decides that if that so happens, she'll invade Mamori's mailbox and set fire to any acceptance letters she gets from any schools _other_ than Deimon. Kanami's not a pyromaniac, and she really doesn't want to become an arsonist, but you gotta get your hands dirty if you want to get things done.

And really, Kanami can never pull away her brother from the _greatness_ that he'll one day become. She can see it in Sena's eyes when she reads the manga that he just _really_ loves American football. She sees how much it's changed him, how much it's made him into a better person—so really, Kanami can't see her brother becoming something else other than the Kobayakawa Sena in Eyeshield 21.

(And besides, she just _really_ wants to see Sena with a harem of men after his own heels. She can just _imagine_ his face when he finds out that he's probably one of the most sought out bachelors of Japan.)

* * *

Kanami's never really given it any thought—heck, the idea never really came to mind, when it _should_ have—until Mamori suggested it, flowery smiles and sparkly eyes and all.

"Mamori-chan, you're a _genius_ ," Kanami reverently says, cheeks flushing deeply as she lovingly gazes at the older girl. "A _prodigy_. A _gift_ from the heavens that Kami-sama himself was just so generous and wise to give to us pitiful and unworthy humans," she says, promptly kneeling down onto one knee to clasp Mamori's hands into her own. "Please. _Marry_ me," she says.

And it's a good thing she'd said all of that in _English_ , because she didn't think she'd be able to handle the embarrassment of Mamori actually understanding her deranged proposal.

"Um," Mamori started, blinking dumbfoundedly, having not understood a single word as expected. "...I told you to call me Mamori-neechan, Kana-chan," Mamori said instead, her tone admonishing.

Switching back to Japanese, Kanami replies "But I like Mamori-chan better."

Mamori just puffed her cheeks, and opened her mouth to refute the girl once again before a whine from their current victim caught their immediate attention.

"Mamo-neechan...Kana-chan..." Sena whines, looking on the verge of tears which just highlighted his adorable features, as well as the pretty, pale pink dress that he'd been forced to wear. "I don't like this game..." He sniffs, wringing his hands into the ends of the skirt of his dress.

Kanami swatted his hands away, preventing him from possibly ruining _her_ dress. Their grandmother from their mother's side had sent it to her as a birthday gift, and it was made from _lace_ (and Amelia hadn't ever owned something so valuable and pretty), so Kanami didn't really want one of her favorite dresses to get ruined just because it was a perfect attire for playing dress-up with Sena.

"Hush, Sena-kun," Kanami says, Sena gives her a pout that's to absolutely die for. But Kanami is strong, both physically (okay, so she may not be a body-builder or anything, but she's _strong_ dammit.) and mentally, so she's able to resist his cuteness that could make any lesser man keel over and submit to him for life. "You always get to pick what to play. Let Kana-nee have her fun too," she says, jutting her bottom lip and fluttering her eyelashes at her brother and unleashing _her_ cuteness.

Armed with the mental knowledge of a three-year old, Sena _didn't stand a single chance_.

Deflating completely, all Sena could muster was a measly, "But I'm the big brother..."

"You mean _sister_ ," Kanami points out, raising her eyebrows at Sena's attire. Her twin flushes a deep red, whereas Mamori struggles to smother her giggles. "Quick, Mamori-chan. Get Asuka-obachan. We need to take a picture of this," Kanami commands, and Mamori listens to her and scurries off to go get her mother.

Sena looks stricken. "M-MAMO-NEECHAN!" He shrieks, both sounding and looking betrayed, and he tries to chase after her if not for Kanami's strong grip on his arm. He turns to face his _**younger**_ sister, prepared to get mad at her and scold her for being so disrespectful to him, but he takes only one look at the scary look on her face and promptly shrinks back in horror. "HIE!" He shrieks, quivering, and, in Kanami's eyes, looking very much like a trembling hamster.

It's oddly endearing.

"Ne, Sena-kun," Kanami says, smiling angelically, and Sena is stupidly fooled by it, naively thinking that his sister will let him go because she loves him very much. But nope, na-da, his hopes are only brutally crushed when Kanami just brings him closer to her and fixes the headband keeping his spiky hair back. "Be a good boy now, Sena-kun, and I won't tell okaa-chan that _you_ were the one who peed the bed last week," she says, in an all too innocent voice.

Sena looks at her with wide, brown eyes, the accusing _HOW COULD YOU?_ written all over his face.

Kanami just smiles sweetly.

Sena thinks that his younger twin sister's absolutely _insane_ and _the_ _devil_.

A few days later, a photograph sits on a shelf within the Kobayakawa's living room, depicting a pretty young girl dressed in a pretty, pale pink dress, framed and all.

When visitors would see the photograph, they'd immediately assume it was the Kobayakawas' only daughter.

Oh, if only they'd remember that Kanami had _green_ eyes, not _brown_ eyes.

* * *

It's April, which means it's summer time, which also means that it's 'Sena-takes-off-his-clothes-everyday' time and for a _good_ reason too because it's _hot_ this particular time of the year, and Kanami would be stripping her clothes off until she's in her own birthday suit as well if she didn't want to keep her dignity intact, thank you very much.

However, today's a different story. Because today, Kanami's not in her usual any colored tank top and Rilakkuma panties, and Sena isn't in his usual birthday suit either—no, the both of them are dressed appropriately enough that they wouldn't shame their parents if they ever decided to go out, and they're dressed to the freaking _nines_ that even Sena himself keeps checking his reflection at a mirror in the corner ever few moments when he thinks that the adults aren't looking.

Mamori and her mother aren't here today, and Kanami finds that strange because it's a Wednesday and Mamori and her mother _always_ comes on a Wednesday. Instead of the usual pair, there's a woman with blonde hair and dark brown eyes sitting in front of them, and Kanami remembers her from that time in December, when many of her mother's friends had gathered in their house to hold a meeting possibly pertaining to gossip and what not.

But for the life of her, Kanami can't remember this oba-san's name.

And, _surprise surprise_ , their father isn't here as well, but Kanami can't really blame him for not being home during the day aside from Sunday. _Somebody_ has to work to pay for the bills after all, but he'd always made it clear to spend time with his family during Sundays.

"Hitomi," their mother says ( _oooh_ , so _that's_ her name) and there's a delightful smile on her face. "I was surprised that you called me earlier to tell me that you were visiting. You usually just drop by whenever you want to," she comments, and the amusement is loud and clear in her voice.

Hitomi-obasan smiled demurely. "It's to keep you on your toes, after all," Hitomi says, laughing softly. "Oba-san doesn't drop by to check up on you, so I've made it my personal mission to do that for her."

"Yes. Of course," their mother says, still smiling, and Kanami remembers the moment right after their mother had placed the telephone down. She'd resembled a tornado, zooming about the house and cleaning every single spot right before she dressed both herself and her children up; just in time too, because right after Sena's spiky hair had been brushed back, their doorbell had rang, announcing Hitomi-obasan's arrival. "So what made you come and visit?" She asked curiously.

"Well," Hitomi-obasan said lengthly. "I have a really big favor to ask from you," she said, clasping her hands together and looking up at their mother with one of her eyes closed, a sheepish expression laid flat on her face. "You remember that I have a daughter, right?" She asked.

Their mother nodded slowly, looking a little bit wary.

"Well, my husband told me that his company's planning on splitting into two branches. One here in Tokyo, and the other in Osaka. Unfortunately, he was one of those who drew the short stick and were assigned to work in Osaka once the building there is finished, give or take a year," Hitomi-obasan said, and Kanami caught Sena's head bobbing downwards, his eyelids unsteadily sliding shut and open. Kanami turned to look at the wall clock, and realized that Sena was supposed to have his nap time right about now.

"What does this have to do with your daughter?" Their mother asked dubiously, raising an eyebrow.

"A lot of things," Hitomi-obasan said, sighing wearily. "My daughter's extremely shy, that she always hides from any of our visitors and refuses to come out of her room. Hiei-kun sometimes gets mad at me for our daughter's behavior, but I really can't blame him. I've babied her too much, to the point that she'll burst into tears whenever I don't bring her along with me wherever I go, and the places we go too are limited as well, because she starts sniffling when we near a park or a mall. I'm just lucky that she allowed me to leave home today," Hitomi-obasan confessed, leaning forward at the last part to whisper it conspiratorially.

Kanami and her mother just stared at Hitomi-obasan in disbelief.

"I know, I know. Stop looking at me like that already," Hitomi-obasan said, huffing as she leaned back and crossed her arms. "I get it. I didn't raise her properly, but could you blame me? She's _adorable_ , and I couldn't help myself," she said with a shrug. "Adorable things are my weakness."

Her mother could only sigh wearily at her friend's antics, whereas Kanami could only nod her head in agreement whilst shaking Sena's arm to keep her brother slightly awake.

"And that's the problem I'm facing," Hitomi-obasan started off. "I'm worried that once we move to Osaka, the kids there will be, well, less tolerant of her shyness there," she admitted.

Their mother blinked. "Isn't your daughter around my kids' age? Isn't that too young for her to be in preschool?" She questioned, shooting concerned looks at both Kanami and Sena, wondering if she'd made a mistake at not enrolling them at an early age. Asuka had told her that four years old was usually the proper age for a child to start daycare or preschool, and that'd been the age Mamori had enrolled as well, so...

Hitomi-obasan bursted out laughing. "Preschool?! Hah! My daughter would've cried every day if she was in preschool," she said. "No, no, no. My daughter has piano classes. Don't ask me why, Hiei-kun decided it. We were only lucky that the studio we enrolled her in only had older students there, so they're not really all that fussy with my daughter's shyness," she said.

"Ohh," their mother said in understanding. "So what? You want to borrow my kids so that they could become practice friends for you kid?"

"Well, I don't want them as practice friends for my daughter. I want Kana-chan and Sena-kun to be her _real_ friends. Just like we are, Mihae-senpai," Hitomi-obasan said, smiling shyly. "That is, if they want to," she said, looking at both Kanami and Sena.

Kanami pinched her older brother in the arm to jolt him awake; to her great fortune, his eyes shot wide open, and he looked around in bewilderment, before he clutched at his slowly reddening skin and pouted at Kanami, who just smiled apologetically at him. Sena just continued to pout at her with that furrowed eyebrow look of his that just made his cuteness factor max out.

Their mother looked down at them. "Well? What do you say, guys? Are you alright with having another playmate other than Mamori-chan?" Their mother softly asked them.

Sena just blinked up at her before looking at his younger sister, a reluctant expression on his face. He leaned in closer to her to whisper to her ear how he didn't want another playmate, and that Mamo-neechan was enough.

(It seemed like Kanami and Mamori had traumatized his idea of girls what with the number of times they'd played dress-up with Sena as their model.)

When Sena leaned away, Kanami just stared intensely at her brother, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of having to deal with what sounded like a bratty version of shy!Mamori—but, judging by the hopeful look on _both_ Hitomi-obasan's and their mother's eyes, Kanami didn't really have that much of a choice. While she didn't really care that much for Hitomi-obasan (she'd met the woman just _once_ and that was back in _December_ ), Kanami loved her mother to teensy weensy tiny bits, so even if she had to swallow her pride and suit herself up into a lion onesie, then she'd do it dammit.

(And she did. Last year, when she was two. They had a picture for it, framed and all, with her as a lion with a fluffy mane and Sena as a tiger with gigantic hand-paws.)

"I don't mind," Kanami said, deciding to throw herself to the sharks, because _why not?_ The worst thing Hitomi-obasan's spawn could do was cry her tiny little lungs out.

Their mother looked at her only son. "Sena-kun?" She inquired.

Sena didn't answer their mother and looked at Kanami, looking lost and confused and a little hurt that his decision hadn't been trusted.

Kanami just hooked her arm around his, slipped her hand into his, and intertwined their fingers together, squeezing briefly. She gave him a smile that she hoped looked comforting, and asked him in a soft voice that having another friend wouldn't hurt them, right?

Sena squeezed back, and looked at at her in the eye. When he looked away from her so that he could look up at their mother, he still had that same hesitant look on his face; even so, he slowly nodded his head, before he immediately looked down at his feet, squeezing their clasped hands every few moments as if his heart was in his hand.

It was his way of saying that he trusted her decision, and Kanami felt a whole load of guilt wash over her for not trusting his decision, and she decided that she'd make it up to him by stealing a few cookies from the jar on the countertop when their mother wasn't looking.

"Then it's settled!" Hitomi-obasan said, clapping her hands cheerily. "I'll swing by next week with Karin-chan!" She exclaimed, smiling brightly.

Later, when Hitomi-obasan had already left, their mother patted them on the head and kissed their foreheads, telling them that she was thankful that she had such good little angels for children.

And Kanami thinks that it's _worth it_. Worth every single misery that she'll most likely encounter with Hitomi-obasan's spawn, if it gets her mother to smile down at her like that.

Glancing at Sena, she can tell that he no longer regrets his decision to make friends with Hitomi-obasan's spawn.

They were suckers for their mother, and they both knew it very well.

* * *

Unbeknownst to Kanami, she'd stirred another ripple within the universe she'd managed to land herself into.

* * *

 **EXTRA: **

**If Kanami had been born anything like Agon.** **(Dedicated to OnepieceZoroOc who gave me this idea. Bless your soul)**

"S-She's a monster!" One of the players for the Koigahama Cupids screeched, stumbling backwards so fast that he landed on his flat ass.

 **"HAH?"** The aforementioned monster said, bright green eyes glinting madly. **"Piece of shit say what now?"** She demanded, breathing out through her nose before stalking towards the poor and stupid as fuck American football player who didn't know when to shut his stupid mouth.

"KANA-CHAN NO!" Kurita wailed, grabbing onto her leg. Unfortunately, Kanami possessed superman-like strength and Kurita's tremendous weight hardly fazed her. "VIOLENCE IS NOT THE ANSWER TO EVERYTHING!"

 **"Let go of me, you stupid fatso! Can't you see that I have a piece of shit to beat up?!"**

"NOOOOO!"

 **"LET."** Punch. **"FUCKING."** Kick. **"GO!"** Punch.

"A-Amazing," Sakuraba said from the sidelines, jaw slackened as he stared up at the impossibly ridiculous scoreboard. "This—This shouldn't even be possible! One player scoring all those points, and it's only the first half—!" He seemed honestly speechless.

Shin had nothing to contribute, aside from his stunned silence.

Even the cheerleaders who'd betrayed their boyfriends to go cheer for Deimon didn't have a single word to say at such a violence.

"Oi, fucking munchkin," Hiruma said, pulling on the back of Sena's collar to get his attention. "Is that _really_ your fucking sister over there?" He demanded, pointing at the enraged player on the field.

Sena meekly looked up, trembling within the devil's grasp. "Y-Yes," he stuttered out.

"Damn," Hiruma said, his gum popping afterwards, and he slurped it back in his mouth. "I sent the wrong secret weapon on the field," he said, looking irritated, and he promptly threw Sena back on the benches. "OI! FUCKING WEIRDO! GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE! WE'RE SWITCHING PLAYERS!"

 **"Fuck you** **,"** Kanami spat, making a rude gesture that had everybody on the team gulping at her crudeness. **"I'm fucking playing, and ain't nobody gonna fucking stop me,"** she said and, to prove her point, she stood on her position on the field, making sure to dig her feet into the ground that'd grown muddy from the sprinklers. She promptly wiggled her ass mockingly, and Hiruma growled, stalking over to his player to give her a good threat.

As Hiruma and Kanami spat curses at each other, the Koigahama Cupids called over the official referee and promptly admitted that they'd be forfeiting. At the end of the day, the Deimon Devil Bats were easily the victorious party and they'd gone home happy (and irritated, in Kanami's case. **"Bunch of fucking shitheads who only think with their dicks. They're not even fucking worth playing on the field, much less step on it with their disgusting incompetence,"** was her opinion of the Koigahama Cupids.)

The Deimon Devil Bats then proceeded to pummel each and every one of their opponents afterwards.

Even Agon didn't stand a fucking chance, faced with a feminine copy of himself who was, during their match, on her period.

Demon took the world of American Football as if it was a walk in the park, and she did it like a badass motherfucking boss.


	4. Chapter 4

**Blessings in Disguise**

 **Written by:** ** _CherryDrug_**

 **Disclaimer** **:** _"I am not the liable owner of the series or franchise of one Eyeshield 21. I do not own it's original plot, it's characters, the public figures, events, places and etcetera. I do, however, own the plot of this story, as well as my OC, one Kobayakawa Kanami. Arigatou for not suing me :)."_

 **Rating** _: This'll be a T-rated fan fiction, so those who're expecting sex or mature themes, please wait for a while ahaha. I'm not yet ready to corrupt my virgin mind with lemons or erotic stories just so that I could please all you perverts, ehehe ;)_

 **Genre** _: Family, Friendship, Adventure, Drama, a spice of Humor, and Romance some time down the road :)_

 **Characters** _: Erm...there'll be a lot in the future, but for now, Kobayakawa Kanami will be our main character for this story of ours :)_

 **Summary:** _I wasn't somebody important that died from a tragic yet all too coincidental accident, with no family to bury me and no friends to mourn my passing; whereas she had been unexpectedly born into a family that still welcomed her with open arms, grew up with a supposedly fictional main character for an elder twin brother. Dear God, why mix us together? SI!OC-as-Sena's-twin._

 **Pairings** _:_ _Conclusion, just gonna let this story flow as it should until I get a pairing lol._

 **AN: **_I don't know about you guys, but I seem to be able to give birth to chapters at a quicker rate if I'm tired and stressed out. (Please don't support this. I don't think my heart can handle such unhealthiness, uhuhu.) Oh! And did you also notice that in the manga, Sena's birthday is on December 21, whilst in the anime, his birthday is on October! I find it kinda weird, because why do you have to change the character's birthday? But meh, it was their decision anyways._

 _And dear gosh was it a pain to write down Karin's dialogue, I swear._

 _And to be honest, I'm not even satisfied with this chapter, but it's needed for the ripples that Kanami's creating. And here, Sena plays a much larger part in the whole 'try to make friends' thing since Kanami's new to this kind of thing, and she doesn't have Sena's naivety to everything._

* * *

 **Chapter 4**

* * *

It had taken one week—o _ne week_ —for Hitomi-obasan to drop by the Kobakayawa household, with her daughter in tow this time, and Kanami hadn't really expected what Hitomi-obasan's spawn had been _really_ like. She'd just assumed that Hitomi-obasan's daughter was just some kind of spoiled crybaby who was too shy to actually _do_ anything, but when she'd taken one look at Hitomi-obasan's daughter, she'd been floored.

"Come on, Karin-chan," Hitomi-obasan coaxed, trying her very best to oh so carefully and oh so gently push her daughter up to the front, but the little girl hiding behind her back didn't waver even _once_ , and Kanami noticed that Hitomi-obasan's daughter had merely tightened her grip on her mother's long skirt, adamantly stubborn and determined to hide forever. "Why don't you introduce yourself to Mihae-oba and her kids?" Hitomi-obaasan suggested softly.

Her daughter merely whimpered lowly behind her.

Feeling sorry for the other girl, Kanami stepped forward and plastered on a smile that was as amiable as amiable could get. "Hi," she said, waving, and she gave her twin brother a bemused look when he pulled her back by her arm. Deciding to ignore her older brother for the moment, she turned back to look at the shadowed figure hiding behind Hitomi-obasan, and she continued despite Sena's tight grip on her lower arm. "I'm Kanami, but you can just call me Kana," she offered.

 _Silence._

Hitomi-oba sighed and sent her mother an apologetic look.

Their mother just smiled. "It's fine, it's fine. Sena-kun was just like that when he was younger," she said, and Kanami could feel her older brother fidgeting as he blushed lightly. "I'm just gonna go get the brownies for the kids, so go make yourselves comfortable," she said just as she exited the room, and all three children perked up at the thought of brownies.

Hey. Give her a break. 19 years old Kanami may be in terms of mentality, but she was still a little kid by heart.

And once their mother left, Kanami elbowed Sena in the side, causing the boy to let go of her arm to protectively hold his aching side. He shot his younger sister an accusing, _what did I do?_ look, and Kanami raised her eyebrows at him.

"Go and introduce yourself," She simply whispered, tilting head head towards Hitomi-obasan who was trying to coax her daughter out from behind her so that they could comfortably sit down on the couch. It still looked like her daughter was still pretty adamant and wasn't going to give up anytime soon on the 'Be One with Mother's Leg' plan, what with the constant whimpers that were coming from her.

Sena shifted in place a few more times, looking every bit as the shy boy that he was, before he looked up at the shadowed figure hiding behind Hitomi-obasan. "E-Eto...H-Hello. M-My name is Kobayakawa Sena, b-but you can just c-call me Sena," he said, before he swiftly looked down at the floor, completely abashed.

And surprisingly, once Sena had finished introducing himself, the little girl hiding behind Hitomi-obasan curiously peered out from behind her mother's legs before hiding back once again; this time, her whimpering stopped, and there was only silence from the other girl. Kanami didn't know whether to take this as a good thing or bad thing.

"Come on, Karin-chan," Hitomi-obasan tried again; however, instead of trying to gently push her daughter out from behind her like before, the woman _pried off_ (and Kanami uses those words strongly, because it was like trying to separate a wooden pencil from its eraser, with wriggling and twisting and all) her daughter and placed the little girl in front of her for all to see.

And Kanami and Sena got a good eyeful of a blonde-haired little girl dressed in a light pink dress.

And that was it.

"A-Ah!" Hitomi-obasan's daughter cried out in surprise and despair, before trying to scramble back behind her mother's legs. Hitomi just tutted at her as she sat down, and her daughter tilted her head back to give her mother a betrayed and hurt look as she clenched tightly onto her mother's skirt.

...Kanami _assumed_ that Hitomi-obasans daughter looked betrayed and hurt, but she couldn't really tell for sure, what with all that blonde hair covering her face. _'Oh no!'_ Kanami thought sarcastically. _'It's Ju-On!'_ She internally wailed, despite the way her shoulders trembled from trying to reign in her giggles.

"No, Karin-chan," Hitomi-obasan said sternly; for the first time looking and sounding _incredibly_ rebuking and upbraided with her daughter's actions. "You're just being mean and rude to Kana-chan and Sena-kun, and we've already talked about this at home. You need to at least _try_ to make friends, or you won't make any at all," Hitomi-obasan said, shaking her head, before looking down at her daughter with big, brown eyes.

Kanami knew that look very well, even though it held little to no effect at all on her since Sena's puppy dog eyes was much more stronger.

"Come on, Karin-chan," Hitomi-obasan crooned, jutting out her bottom lip even more to make it poutier. "You promised okaa-san that you'll at least try," she said, and Kanami could just imagine the imaginary arrows stabbing right at the other girl's guilty points.

Hitomi-obasan's daughter contemplated it for a few, _very_ (and Kanami stresses the _'very'_ strongly) long moments; then finally, with few more encouragements from her mother, the little blonde-headed girl introduced herself. "H-H-Hel-Hello," she stuttered out, completely butchering that one simple word, fidgeting a few more times, and Sena had to quietly ask Kanami what the other girl had said. "I-I-I'm K-K-Koi-Koizumi K-Karin. P-P-Please treat m-me we-well," Koizumi stammered out, looking at the ground the entire time.

It took a while for Kanami to decipher the words, but once she did, she nodded slowly and asked for clarification. "Koizumi Karin?" The name didn't really strike her as familiar at all, so Kanami brushed off the idea that Koizumi was a prominent or even a semi-prominent character of Eyeshield 21.

Koizumi flinched, as if startled, but she hesitantly nodded. "Y-Y-You ca-can j-ju-just c-call m-me K-K-Karin," she muttered, and what little features that Kanami could visibly see on her face flushed a light red.

"...Karin?" Sena tried, looking at the aforementioned girl to see if he'd pronounced her name right. It'd seemed that he hadn't quite understood her stuttering, judging by the bemusedly hesitant expression upon his features.

Koizumi— _Karin_ , Kanami silently reminded herself, meeky nodded and fidgeted once more, gripping the skirt of her dress quite tightly.

Sena visibly glanced at Kanami, and Kanami was forced to look back at Sena since he began tugging at the back of her clothes when she didn't immediately look back at him. She raised an eyebrow at him, and he pointedly looked at Karin, the message in his brown eyes all too easily read and understood by Kanami.

(That was a funny thing that Kanami was trying to get used to. She didn't know whether it was because they were twins and that 'twins can read each other's mind' thing was real, or merely because of the fact that she was older and was able to easily understand the wants of a child considering that she'd been raised in an environment filled with snot-filled little brats who needed to be catered or they'd start _wailing_ , but Kanami was getting a little spooked out herself by how she and Sena were able to understand each other with no words necessary. But it was _cool as heck_ , she'd admit that.)

Kanami narrowed her eyes at him and jutted out her bottom lip, giving him her best _I don't wanna do this, please don't make me do this_ look; but Sena was stubborn, and he pinched her in the middle of the back. Surprised by her brother's action—it was supremely rare for him to resort to physical violence when he wanted something once he'd turned one and learned that throwing around things was not the ideal way of getting attention—Kanami yelped. causing everyone in the room to look at her.

Hitomi-obasan looked concerned. "Kana-chan, are you okay?" She asked; even Karin seemed to look look a little bit worried or maybe she was weirded out by Kanami's sudden yelp, even though she tried to burrow herself into her mother's lap.

"Y-Yes, Hitomi-obasan," Kanami said, managing a smile, even though inwardly she wanted to shove Sena down to the ground, because _ow!_ That pinch _really_ hurt, dammit! "I just suddenly felt, um, cold, ahaha," she lied through her teeth, and the older woman didn't look one bit convinced but allowed it to slide just this once.

Kanami bit the inside of her cheek, resisting the urge to kick her brother in the back of his legs because Sena was just _oozing_ smugness.

"If you're sure..." Hitomi-obasan said, just as their mother came into the room.

"Sure about what?" Their mother asked as she placed the plate of brownies on the table.

Nobody answered her, because all three children and Hitomi-obasan reached out to take a brownie from the plate. Kanami noticed with amusement that Karin had been the first one to take a brownie from the plate; when the blonde-headed girl noticed that she was staring at her, Karin squeaked lowly and she looked back down at the ground right after she'd retreated back to her mother, beginning to nibble down on her delicacy.

"Oh, Sena!" Their mother suddenly cried, and pulled out a glass of water from out of nowhere. "Eat your food slowly! It's not like they'll run away from you," she scolded as she thumped her son on the back before she let him drink from the glass of water

(Unbeknownst to anybody aside from Kanami and Sena; just a few moments ago, Kanami had jabbed her older brother in the side just as he swallowed his brownie, causing the boy to constrict his throat out of surprise, and in turn making him choke on his own food.

And Kanami didn't feel one bit guilty about it as she chewed through her brownie, not even once looking like she'd noticed the glare her brother had sent her whilst their mother had innocently turned around.)

"Here," their mother said, and Kanami jolted upright to look up at her mother in surprise. "Take these brownies up to yours and Sena-kun's room so that the two of you and Karin-chan can play up there," she suggested, beaming brightly, and Kanami wordlessly took the plate of brownies from her mother. "Hitomi-oba and I have something to talk about," she said, and she shooed all three children out of the living room.

Karin looked absolutely terrified without her mother in sight, and she helplessly looked up at the closed door that led to the living room, hesitant to go back in there since she didn't really want to offend anybody just because she wanted to be with her mother.

Kanami noticed the dilemma that Karin seemed to be in, and reluctantly decided to help the girl out. "Do you want to play with us?" She asked first of all, even though deep down she didn't know whether to be annoyed by such a clingy child (but the other girl was only three years old, so it really wasn't any surprise that Karin was so dependent) or pitiful for such shyness.

Mamori hadn't been that bad, and _she'd_ been the one who'd actually experienced what being bullied felt like.

Karin immediately froze, and she mechanically turned to face the other girl. "A-Ah?" She said, looking fearfully confused.

Kanami resisted the urge to heave out a loud sigh. "Do you want to play with us, Karin-san?" She repeated.

Karin looked down at the ground, fidgeting nervously as she played with her fingers. "A-Ano, you...y-you do-don't m-mind?"

Kanami looked at Sena, silently urging him to add his own two cents to the mix. It seemed her older brother seemed to understand the gist of her silent message after looking at her in the eye, because he gave a brief nod and turned to the shy, blonde-headed girl who didn't seem to know exactly what to do.

"Nope," he said, shaking his head. "Why would we? The more the, ugh..." Sena trailed off, looking thoughtful as he tried to search for the word that he was looking for; unfortunately, he failed to, and he flushed a beet red when he realized that both girls were expectantly looking at him, and he embarrassingly looked down at the floor, steam practically coming out from his ears.

To the utmost surprise of the Kobayakawa twins, an amused giggle chimed from Karin, causing the twins to look at Karin in surprise—well, Kanami tried (keyword: _tried_ ) to be discreet about it as she pretended to spot something _incredibly_ interesting in the brownies that she held, whereas Sena peered upwards with his big brown eyes.

And as if sensing something inordinate, Karin stopped giggling once she'd realized that both Kobayakawa twins were staring at her as if she'd grown a second head. With all the blood going to her face, Karin blushed a bright shade of red as she meekly looked back down at the ground. "I—a-ah, um, y-you, I-I," gibberish flowed out of her mouth for a while, before she managed to form the appropriate words. "I-I'm v-very s-s-sorry! I-I d-didn't mea-mean to l-laugh!" She stammered out loudly right before bowing lowly.

Sena looked at Kanami for guidance, having not understood what Karin had just said.

"She's trying to apologize," Kanami whispered to him. "And she looks about ready to cry too," she added, inquisitively looking at the girl. Well, Kanami couldn't be absolutely sure that Karin was close to tears, but the way the blonde-headed girl's shoulders trembled greatly, Kanami was slightly sure that the girl was _almost_ close to tears.

Maybe.

Weak to anybody but mainly girls crying, Sena tried to placate Karin to the best of his ability. "P-Please don't cry!" Sena pleaded, looking at Karin with his devastatingly irresistible big brown eyes that were as adorably wide as they could get. "You can laugh all you want! I-I mean, you can laugh whenever you w-want to, that is, because it's very pretty and—" Sena paused, and took a moment to review his words until his entire face transformed into the color of a tomato once he'd realized what exactly he'd just said.

Karin didn't look any better once she'd realized what he'd said as well.

Kanami just smiled, amused with the two, before she remembered that she had a plate of brownies in her hands that smelled awfully delicious. Her stomach gurgled pleadingly, and Kanami rubbed her stomach to calm it down. "Come on, you two," she tried to encourage, making her way towards the stairs. "Let's go to my room. The faster we get there, the faster we can eat these brownies," she said, raising the dish up to emphasize her point.

Both Karin and Sena's gazes immediately trailed towards the plate of brownies, entranced and probably drooling in their own ways. They scampered after Kanami when they realized that she was already half-way up the stairs; however, before Sena could place one foot on the first step, Kanami suddenly stopped climbing and turned her head to bark at him.

"Oi! You remember the rules, Sena!" Kanami berated, and both Karin and Sena halted in their tracks. "You have to hold hands when you go up the stairs!" She admonished him. It was a rule that their father had created when he'd seen her and Sena go down the stairs one time, with her nearly tripping even though they were already at the bottom step. His ultimate rule was that she and Sena were to hold whatever stair railings they could reach whilst holding hands, no matter how difficult it was. Kanami approved of this idea, since she didn't want Sena to accidentally hurt himself, and also because rules like these provided for interesting situations for Sena with people like Mamori.

Oh~! The way he'd blushed when Mamori had delightfully taken his hand; even though she was the one leading them up the stairs instead of him.

(Her brother was just too uke to be a seme, you know.)

Sena looked absolutely mortified once Kanami mentioned the rule. "E-EH? But Kana-chan! I thought that was only for the two of us!" He exclaimed, not noticing how Karin had flinched at his words and negative reaction, sulkily thinking that Sena must have just been joking about her laugh a while ago and that he didn't really like her at all.

"Then what about Mamori?" Kanami pointed out, narrowing her eyes at her brother. "Why can _she_ follow that rule, huh?"

Sena had nothing to say as he looked down at the ground, fidgeting and shifting in place for all he was worth. Kanami knew her brother couldn't open his mouth once more without saying something that might actually and truly hurt Karin, and _she_ knew that _he_ knew that as well. Kanami casted a glance at Karin, and her gaze softened when she saw that the girl was getting more and more uncomfortable as they talked.

"Can't you just hold her hand, Sena?" Kanami asked, her tone much softer this time. "I don't want the both of you getting hurt when you climb up the stairs," she added after a moment, knowing that Sena would usually take her worried bait.

Sena just stared up at her, a flicker of...of _something_ passing across his features, before he nodded in defeat. "Okay, fine," he said with a small huff, before he turned to face Karin and, almost gingerly, held out a hand for her to take, his entire face as dark as a cherry by now.

Startled, Karin jumped back, and Kanami assumed that the blonde-headed girl was staring unsurely at Sena's hand, as if it would poison her if she so much as grazed it. Karin shuffled in place, finding the floor a rather _fascinating_ sight. "Y-You d-don't h-h-have t-to ho-hold my h-hand i-if y-you d-don't wa-want t-to..." she stuttered out, and it didn't have to take one to be a genius to figure out the hurt and sadness in her voice.

There were a minute of silence as Kanami and Sena deciphered her stutters.

Sena blinked at that—and Kanami felt like banging her head against the nearest wall. _'Sena's an exception, of course,'_ she thought dryly—and the boy tilted his head to the side, his eyebrows drawing together to form an almost puzzled expression. "Eh?" He started out aloud, making Karin flinch. "What are you talking about? I-I don't mind holding your hand, i-if _you_ don't mind," he said, his face getting even redder if that was even possible, as he shyly looked down at the floor.

What little facial features that weren't covered by Karin's blonde hair turned a bright red.

 _'Kami,'_ Kanami thinks, snorting ever so quietly. _'They're_ three. _If this is supposed to be some kind of deranged form of flirting, I don't want to watch it anymore. All I'm doing is getting myself hurt watching them,'_ she thought, pursing her lips soon afterwards.

Fortunately for her, Karin tentatively slipped her hand into Sena's and together, they clambered up the stairs right after Kanami.

 _'Oh my gosh,'_ Kanami thinks, resisting the ever loving urge to giggle creepily like an obsessed otaku at the most fabulous sight of Sena _leading his first girl up the stairs_ (except her, of course. Kanami didn't count anyways, since she was his sister and all and yeah). _'Where the fuck is my phone when I need it the most.'_ It'd never occurred to her that the last phone she had was probably back in her old orphanage in her old life; all she knew at that moment was how freaking unlucky she was because she didn't have something to capture this moment that would never be shown in the manga or anime, but only in real life.

* * *

Conversation with Karin was extremely retarded, Kanami would learn after about half an hour of getting the girl to _actually_ answer one of her questions, and it had taken an entire plateful of brownies and lining up every stuff-filled toy she and Sena ever owned in front of Karin—apparently, the girl had a weakness for soft and adorable things, and it also helped that she was more likely to talk if said soft and adorable things were within her visage.

It wasn't like Karin was a _terrible_ conversationalist—the girl was _shy_ , Kanami would give her that, and she had exactly _zero_ self-esteem; Karin was _much_ worse than Mamori, and Kanami had to wonder what had made Karin into this ridiculous ball of fear and tears. Frankly, Kanami was getting tired of having to deal with anxious kids, since she decided once and for all that it wasn't really good for her heart and all to deal with such stressful emotions that would give her grey hair at the age of _ten_ , but what could she do? Abandon the little tykes? _Hah_ , as if. Like she could ever deal with the brunt of her mother's disappointing stare, haha. She'd be better off digging her own grave. Yeah, she was _that_ whipped—but realistically, Karin was the most _stunted_ conversationalist to have ever walked the Earth.

(Kanami would count trees and walls onto the list, but last time she checked, neither of those could walk.)

She and Sena had been tag-teaming for a while; one of them would figure out a way on how to make Karin open up even just the _slightest_ bit, whilst the other would sit on the sidelines and simply watch. Right now, she was the one taking a break as her older brother tried to encourage Karin to play 'Rabbit Rockets' with him.

But now that she was watching Karin interact with her brother, Kanami could actually _see_ what was wrong with the girl. It wasn't that Karin was just shy, or a crybaby, or spoiled—no, all of those traits just attributed to the fact that the girl had little to none social instincts, something that Kanami hadn't seen in _anybody_ , and that was saying something since Amelia'd grown up being smothered by little devils. So frankly, Kanami had absolutely no idea about _how,_ exactly, to deal with Karin. Kanami couldn't just treat Karin's lack of social instincts as she would treat Mamori's predicament of being bullied; it would be like treating breast cancer and lung cancer similarly, and while the two diseases had the same procedures of origination, the procedure of _treatments_ weren't. It'd be like saying salt and sugar were the same, and that'd be _stupid_ , and Kanami had never been _stupid_ in her past life.

 _(_ _Amelia only had one thing to take pride about herself: it was her brain. She'd never really been beautiful, nor was she athletically or artistically talented. The only thing she had going for her was her head, and that was it. But she wasn't a prodigious genius; she was just smart. Kind of._ )

And, when encountering something of the unknown, the first course of actions that one should usually take was to ask questions—or, summarily, to find the origination of the unknown per say, if it was possible of course.

 _'Ugh,'_ Kanami thought, holding the top of her head as she felt a headache start to form. _'I really should stop overthinking sometimes_ ,' she decided, rubbing her temple.

"U-um, a-are y-you o-okay, K-Ka-Kanami-san?" a quiet and meek voice jolted Kanami from her thoughts, and Kanami mechanically turned her head to face Karin, blinking in surprise that the girl had even spoken up, much less to _her_ and not Sena who was her current playmate.

"Huh? Uh, yes, I am," Kanami nodded, smiling politely. "Why?"

Karin turned her head to the side, and Kanami assumed that the other girl was fixated on the toy in Sena's hand just to avoid meeting her gaze. "I-It's just...n-nevermind," Karin stuttered out, shaking her head as if trying to get rid of any unnecessary thoughts.

Kanami knew that she shouldn't pry—really, she _shouldn't_ , not when she and Sena were slowly making process in trying to get Karin to open up—but just a little bit of pushing wouldn't hurt, right? "Come on," Kanami urged, scooting closer until she was sitting next to Sena and leaning against him. Her older brother wrapped an arm around her waist as she wrapped an arm around his. "You can tell me. I won't mind," Kanami continued, hoping that her smile was defenseless and just plain amiable.

( _She'd never really learned how to properly smile, not until she became Kanami. Amelia didn't have a reason to smile so she never really tried._ )

Karin still didn't look at her; instead, the other girl looked as if she hadn't heard her and was now abiding her time by fiddling with the toy nearest to her.

Kanami and Sena exchanged a few wordless looks before the former sighed and pulled away from her brother, mentally pondering on which course of action to take in order to seal up the wound she'd stupidly created. Taking a random toy from the ground, Kanami scooted closer to Karin, ignoring the look of pure panic that Sena'd shot her. Kanami stopped when she was just close enough to Karin that they'd be able to play dolls with one another, but far enough from the girl to give her her own personal space.

It took a few more minutes of coaxing before she and Karin were holding a proper game of dancing dolls, and by then Sena had come over to join their game with one of his toy robots. After a few more minutes, the dancing game had evolved into something more of a rescue and fight game with Sena being the hero, Karin being the damsel in distress, and Kanami being the evil overlord intent on subjugating every single toy in the world.

"Ne, Karin-chan," Sena started off just as Kanami had made her doll dramatically plummet to the ground in an act of complete defeat by the hands of Sena's toy, and Kanami didn't miss the way the blonde-headed girl had perked up at the usage of her name with a suffix. "What does you face look like?" He asked, and Kanami had to stare at her brother, silently wondering if he'd asked that because he either wanted to see what she looked like or simply because he wanted to see if Karin even _had_ a face.

Oh the woes of having such an adorably silly brother.

"M-My f-face?" Karin stammered out as she gently placed the doll on the ground. "Y-you wa-want t-to s-see m-my fa-face?" She asked, and Kanami could very well hear the surprise and confusion in her voice.

"Yup!" Sena chirped, before he realized how overly eager his response had been and flushed brightly once again.

Kanami had expected Karin to shyly squeak out a protest or respond in a negative way; however, much to Kanami's astonishment, Karin had unexpectedly complied with Sena's request.

"U-Um, o-okay," Karin shyly said, and both Kanami and Sena leaned in just as the other girl parted her long blonde hair to reveal her face.

As Sena stared wordlessly at Karin, Kanami just blinked as Karin pushed her hair behind her ears so that her face could be scrutinized by the Kobayakawa twins. Kanami took note that Karin looked a lot like her mother. An oval face filled with baby fat, thin eyebrows, brown eyes framed by thick lashes, a small nose, high cheekbones, a sharp jawline, and naturally pouty lips.

Kanami took a moment to briefly wonder how a three-year old could be so pretty—but then she remembered about one of her mother's friends who had naturally pink hair, and Mamori's own unique hair, and decided that the incomprehensible logic of the anime world shouldn't even be comprehended at all unless one wanted a headache.

"W-Wow," Sena managed to say, looking a little bit hypnotized by Karin's face. "Y-you're really very pretty, Karin-chan," he blurted out, his big brown eyes zeroed in on Karin whose bright red cheeks took on an even darker shade of red. "I mean it! You're really pretty, Karin-chan!" He exclaimed, leaning in forward until his face was just inches away from Karin.

Karin looked up at Sena through her eyelashes. "Y-You think so?" She asked softly, quietly, and Kanami couldn't help but take note that Karin had just _barely_ stuttered out her words. There was still hope for the girl after all.

Realizing how uncomfortably close he was to Karin, Sena flushed brightly as he leaned back into his seat right next to Kanami. Sympathizing with her brother, Kanami hooked her arm around his and slipped her hand into his, intertwining their fingers and squeezing his hand soon afterwards. Sena looked down at her, his full attention having turned to her, and Kanami smiled encouragingly at her brother, making Sena blush even further.

"I..." Sena started off, before he swallowed the imaginary lump that had accumulated in his throat. He ripped his gaze off of Kanami and placed it on Karin, who was still looking at him with flushed cheeks. "Yes," he said shortly, before he looked down at the ground with thinned lips.

Kanami couldn't help but giggle at the two blushing children in front of her, which only made both children blush even brighter if that was even possible. Right after that, Kanami would have encouraged both children to join her back in their game, if a most interesting question hadn't popped up in her head. "Hey, Karin-san," Kanami said, and the aforementioned girl perked up at the mention of her name, the embarrassment of what had happened earlier still lingering but having been easily forgotten once the conversation had strayed away to a new topic. "Why do you cover your face?"

Sena raised his head up to look at Kanami, wondering how that question had even formed in his sister's head, but he also had to silently agree that she _did_ have a point. To him, Karin didn't have a reason to hide how pretty she was.

"I-it's n-not l-like I-I t-try t-to hi-hide it," Karin stammered out. "I-I just d-don't li-like i-it w-when o-okaa-chan t-ties m-my hair," she said softly. "I-It really h-hurts m-my head," she ended with a low whimper as she tightly clutched onto the skirt of her dress.

"Then why don't you wear headbands?" Kanami proposed.

Karin shook her head. "T-The e-ends d-dig a-at t-the b-back of m-my e-ears a-and i-it h-hurts too," she muttered.

 _'Kami,'_ Kanami thinks. _'Doesn't she know that once she hits puberty with that kind of hairstyle, acne will be a total disaster? Oh yeah, wait, she's three, and she's one of the most difficult children I've ever met,'_ she concludes. "Then how abut braiding your hair," Kanami suggested, deciding that this one would be the last before she decided to go back to playing, having come to terms with the fact that fixing Karin's hair was as close to hopeless as possible.

Karin blinked. "B-Braiding?" She questioned aloud.

"Want me to try braiding your hair?" Kanami offered, hands held out, and a smile painting her lips

Karin leaned away from her, appearing ready to refuse, but then the girl paused, looking as if she was pondering seriously about something. "It won't hurt?" Karin asked softly; for once, not stuttering, much to the surprise of the Kobayakawa twins.

After recovering from her own surprise, Kanami laughed softy. "Not unless you want it too," she said with a wink, making Karin squeak out and loudly proclaim that no, she didn't. Laughing once again, Kanami just breathed out a happy sigh. "Alright. I promise that this won't hurt," she vowed as she sat behind Kanami and began combing her fingers through the girl's long hair, wondering what kind of braid she should make as she reached for the rubber bands hidden underneath her bed.

Once Kanami had finished, she pulled away from Karin's trembling form. "Done," she announced softly, and she smiled when she heard Karin breath out a loud sigh of relief. "Did it hurt?" Kanami asked once she was seated right next to Sena, bumping her older twin brother who seemed a little too dazed.

Karin shook her head, eyes straying towards her braided her, looking fascinated by it. "N-No," she admitted. "T-This is r-really n-nice, K-Kanami-san," Karin said, before a bright and sweet smile bloomed across her face. "T-Thank you," she sincerely said, looking grateful and with a blush adorning her cheeks.

"Your welcome," Kanami said with a smile, before she leaned forward so that she could push a forgotten strand of blonde hair behind Karin's ear. "There, no need for you to hide that pretty face of yours," Kanami says, and she takes pride in how dark Karin's face burns in embarrassment.

"T-Thank you," Karin repeats, and Kanami just smiles a sickly sweet smile, swallowing down the creepy giggle that's threatening to burst out from her throat, because d'aaawww, Karin is just kawaii as hell.

And then, afterwards, when Sena manages to persuade Karin into playing a couple of board games, Kanami can't help but wonder why Karin just looks so damn familiar with her hair braided lowly like that; and Kanami's pretty sure that Karin isn't a prominent character in Eyeshield 21 that she _should_ remember; after all, Sena was the only shy character there, right?

And besides, Mamori and Sena's supposed girlfriend should be the only female characters there right? Aside from that Oujo's American Football club manager, and that Band-something Spiders manager, right?

 _Right?_

Well, alright then.


	5. Chapter 5

**Blessings in Disguise**

 **Written by:** ** _CherryDrug_**

 **Disclaimer** **:** _"I am not the liable owner of the series or franchise of one Eyeshield 21. I do not own it's original plot, it's characters, the public figures, events, places and etcetera. I do, however, own the plot of this story, as well as my OC, one Kobayakawa Kanami. Arigatou for not suing me :)."_

 **Rating** _: This'll be a T-rated fan fiction, so those who're expecting sex or mature themes, please wait for a while ahaha. I'm not yet ready to corrupt my virgin mind with lemons or erotic stories just so that I could please all you perverts, ehehe ;)_

 **Genre** _: Family, Friendship, Adventure, Drama, a spice of Humor, and Romance some time down the road :)_

 **Characters** _: Erm...there'll be a lot in the future, but for now, Kobayakawa Kanami will be our main character for this story of ours :)_

 **Summary:** _I wasn't somebody important that died from a tragic yet all too coincidental accident, with no family to bury me and no friends to mourn my passing; whereas she had been unexpectedly born into a family that still welcomed her with open arms, and grew up with a supposedly fictional main character for an elder twin brother. Dear God, why mix us together? SI!OC-as-Sena's-twin._

 **Pairings** _:_

 **AN: ** WARNING WARNING, KINDA-FILLER CHAPTER AHEAD. Unless you're interested in the Azalea Festival of Japan, as well as Sena and Kanami's growing up, oh and some progress lol, feel free to read on. Oh, and yeah, to answer some reader's questions, Amelia had died when she was _sixteen_ , at her first year of high school. Usually, foster children are discharged from their homes at the age of eighteen but a child is allowed living extension within their foster homes until after they've finished high school. This only pertains to certain regions; places such as California has this kind of rule that a foster child can't claim independence unless they've graduated from high school. And whoo, I really researched this shit up i swear.

* * *

 **Chapter 5**

* * *

Kanami knew that she couldn't hide things from her twin—it was somewhat inevitable, since they spent most of their time together, either awake or asleep. Still, she really hadn't been expecting Sena's face to be the first thing she sees when her eyelids flutter open and the drowsy haze from her mind fades away along with her most recent nightmare. It takes her a moment to realize that he's awake as awake can get, with his big brown eyes trained on her—and Kanami notices, with a rub of her eyes, that she's been sweating.

"Kana-chan..." Sena starts off, and it's the worry and concern on his face that jolts Kanami completely awake. The first thing that enters her train of thought was if something bad had happened, like if there were suspicious noises coming from downstairs when both of their parents were supposed to be asleep. As far she knew, Sena had yet to wake her up to check underneath their bed or outside the window or in their closet for monsters. "Are you okay?" He asks her before nibbling down on his bottom lip, his eyebrows drawn together to complete the entire look.

It's all too tempting to answer her brother with a dazed ' _huh?_ ' because it's the middle of the night and she'll need her beauty sleep because tomorrow Mamori's going to teach her how to not only ride a bike but also how to _bike_ a bike ( _Amelia's never learned the mechanics of biking. Sure, she's ridden on the back of Mrs. Drew's motorcycle when her curfew was oh so dangerously close but other than that, she has exactly zero experience. What can she say? Perks, or was it a disadvantage?, of being a foster kid)_ ; but she's _really_ curious and _really_ confused over why her brother is asking such a question. As far as she knew, she hadn't suddenly gotten sick overnight, right? Checking her arm to see if her skin had suddenly turned green or blue or _worse, rainbow_ , Kanami's pleased to see it in it's regular, albeit a little paler than usual, color. "Yeah, why?" She replies at long last.

"You were talking in your sleep and you looked like you were hurt...did you have a nightmare?" Sena asks her, and if she had been about to swallow anything, Kanami would have most likely choked on it. Sadly, she didn't, and it was sad because that would've made a very good distraction from answering his question.

Now, to lie or not to lie.

Heaving out a very big sigh, Kanami makes her decision. It was bound to happen anyways, what with the number of times she's been having bad dreams every week now (nightmare!Kanami just doesn't know when to take a break, huh?) so what use was it lying to her concerned older brother? "Yeah," she admits, before she reaches out to him so that she can drape her arm over his body. She smiles fondly when he mimics her action. "But I'm okay now," she says—and how ironic it is that _she's_ the one doing the comforting.

Sena narrows his eyes at her—and Kanami nearly chokes on her own _spit_ when she sees this uncharacteristic side to him. He looks like a _seme_ , muffin dammit, and now she has to insanely wonder where the hell seme!Sena hid the body of uke!Sena—with a look of ' _you're lying and I know it'_ on his face that makes her laugh a little.

"I'm fine, really, I am," Kanami tries to persuade her older brother.

"Was it bad?" Sena cuts her off before she could go into a full-out explanation where she would probably have to get off the bed and get some papers and crayons so that she could make diagrams and all until Sena's too confused to even comprehend what the hell she's talking about and tiredly decides that maybe they should go back to sleep since it's late and all.

Kanami shuts her mouth shut, opens it, then closes it again, at a complete loss for words. She was already used to dealing with her nightmares, _alone_ , because who would help her? As Amelia, money was pretty tight, and as if the orphanage would put away a couple of bills away so that her insomnia could be helped what with the dozens of _other_ problematic kids underneath their roof, and as Kanami, she'd grown used to the idea that she'd have to deal with it alone once again since she didn't want to give her parents the impression that she was a 'problem' child (she'd tried to so hard to be such a good, _normal,_ girl in their eyes).

Kanami didn't want to be thrown away, with a _good reason_ at that too.

But nobody— _nobody_ —had ever asked her if it was bad; heck, nobody had even asked about her nightmares before since she'd hid her secret away so tightly.

"..." Kanami doesn't say anything. Instead, she thins her lips and refuses to meet Sena's gaze, a whirlwind of emotions battling it out inside of her, as she wonders what does one exactly do in this kind of situation. "I don't want to talk about it," Kanami finally says after a very long and very awkward moment, and she rolls on her other side just to emphasize her point (as well as to avoid seeing Sena's face, that's probably a whole plateful of _hurt_ and nothing but that).

There's an awkward pause that hangs in the air, and Kanami takes advantage of it by closing her tired eyes; she doesn't go back to sleep, however, because that's just _impossible,_ especially with the haunting thought of a nightmare bursting in from the depths of her subconsciousness once again. She just closes them, with the hope that the pain pounding from both sides of her head will fade away soon.

Kanami feels even guiltier when she continues to feign sleep even when Sena's arm plops down over her waist, and he quietly whispers a good night that's filled with so much sadness and love and that silent _I'll always be here_ message hidden underneath that makes her feel even _worse_.

She placates the hurt blooming wildly in her chest by placing her hand over Sena's once she's sure that he's asleep and quietly snoring away, and rubbing her thumb through his soft knuckles that have yet to toughen up.

Kanami murmurs her own good night, that's filled with as much sadness and love that had been in Sena's voice. She really didn't want to hurt her older brother; but what else can she do in such a short amount of time? Nobody's ever offered to help her more personal problems (but maybe that's because she's made her problems too invisible that even the most observative of people would never know unless they were sleeping in the same bed as she was), and frankly, Kanami doesn't think that she can even handle all the feels and emotions of being _helped_. Amelia's never really been an emotional girl, and Kanami's just now tapping into her inner feelings; so _all of this_? All of this love that she doesn't really deserve? All of this happiness and sadness and anger and possessiveness that's just now being shoved into her arms? She _doesn't know_ how to deal with all of this.

So Kanami does the best think she can think of; she deals with her inner turmoil alone. Nothing bad's happened for the past sixteen years she's lived as Amelia, so another lifetime of dealing with herself shouldn't really be all that hard, right?

(But to be honest, Kanami's kind of impressed with Sena. He's managed to find out about her nightmares 4 months after they'd started; it's kind of funny, in an ironic kind of sense, because he's managed to find out about what was fucking up her mental state when Amelia's old caretakers never did and they'd taken _years_ upon _years_ of trying to find out what was wrong with her head.)

* * *

Nothing out of the ordinary happens in the next few days; sure, Sena kept on flashing her worry-filled looks and pestering her if she was alright the day after, but he stops soon enough the next day, looking for all the world as if nothing had happened that night he'd found out about her nightmares; plus, he hasn't ratted her out to anybody yet, so it's fine.

Life goes on. Their father continues to work hard for the family, their mother continues to scavenge through the internet for oven-baked recipes, Mamori continues to come play with them and occasionally teach them a couple of things she's learned from preschool, Karin continues to be the shy ball of adorable fluff that she is, and Sena continues being the best and most adorable big brother ever.

And Kanami...she continues how to _live_ —but not in that 'live just to survive another day as a foster kid,' no, it's _live_ as in to be alive, _to have a childhood, to have a family, to know what being loved and how to love feels like_ —because what else can Kanami do aside from _live_? Excuse her cheesiness, as well as her tight grip on her previous life but—

But...Kanami doesn't think that she can so easily let go of a life that had _made_ her who she is right now. She may be Kanami now, but inside, it's still Amelia's memories and life experiences who's operating her life right now, and Kanami can't let go of that so easily. She'd lived _once_ —a life that had taught her that sometimes, people were just born luckily whilst other people were just born _un_ luckily. Some get to be born into money, into a perfect family, or maybe into something _great_ , and there are those who were in born in poverty, in filth, in _abandonment_.

Kanami wonders if the cycle of reincarnation is kind of like playing Russian Roulette. You're sitting on a table, with a pistol in hand and the barrel pointed at your forehead, the weapon itself half-loaded with bullets, and then you pull the trigger and it's up to faith to which life you get: the 'blessed' part or the 'cursed' part, depending if you get the bullet or not or whatever.

But Kanami throws that ridiculous idea away—because there's no such thing a blessed life or a cursed life. Each and every person is born with a random amount of fortune and misfortune, and Kanami's pretty sure that how _good_ or _kind_ or _selfless_ your incarnations were aren't really involved here because Amelia was a pretty shitty person—sure, she died a virgin, sure she died drug-free, sure she died alcohol-free; but Amelia isn't exactly the most valiant of people because she sometimes imagines her past bullies rotting in the pits of bonfire, and she also sometimes wonders what her terrible caretakers would feel like when _their_ trapped in that cramp cabinet right next to the stove—but look where she is now? With a financially stable and loving family, everything she's ever wanted.

And woah, since when had her thoughts started choo-chooing over to such dreary thoughts? Pushing aside her admittedly disturbing thoughts and locking them up in the back of her mind, Kanami continues on: sure, it would be easy to just _let go_ of her past—to just move on as 'Kanami' and let go of 'Amelia'—but Kanami _doesn't want to_ because no matter how shitty Amelia's life was, Amelia's life was still _valuable_ to her because that'd been _hers_ to the very end, and Kanami treasures what little possessions she had had as Amelia.

Amelia _defines_ the Kanami right now—helps her along in this tough journey where her older brother is supposed to transform from a scrawny and hideously shy kid to some kind of American Football legend—and Kanami knows that she'll need all the help that she can get if she's determined to hide this unbelievable secret of hers to the very grave.

So yes, all is normal and swell for a couple of days, and Kanami learns to settle back into a normal life as Kobayakawa Kanami.

But then something _new_ happens after a few measly days filled with aching peace.

It starts with their father bringing home a bouquet of flowers ranging from pale pink to a dark purple for their mother, and both Kanami and Sena are stupefied because their father isn't _exactly_ romantic, and neither is their mother. Gifts like these on days without special occasions _don't happen_ under this roof; so yeah, they're _shocked_ to see their father doing something romantic for once, and without a good reason to boot too.

But when their mother finally got a good look at their their father, she doesn't even react _normally_. "Oh," she just says, eyebrows raised precariously high. "Is it that time of the year already?" She asks as she takes the bouquet from her husband before scurrying off to find a vase for it, without so much as a thank you or a blush adorning her cheeks.

Kanami and Sena exchanged a pair of bemused looks as their father pats them on the head, the two of them puzzling over their mother's unexpected reaction, as well as wondering what she was talking about.

"Yeah," their father says as he loosens his tie and sits down on the couch. "Since we're not going to the Tsutsuji Festival again this year, I thought that I should buy you some," he mentions all too nonchalantly just as their mother returns to the living room, a vase full of what was apparently azaleas in her hand.

"Shuuma..." Their mother says warningly, shooting him The Look as she sets down the vase in the center of the living room's coffee table. "You know we can't go this year because of the kids. They're too young," she reminds him as she crosses her arms over her chest, hips cocked to one side, and a critical eyebrow raised in her husband's direction. "And stop pouting, will you? You're too old for that," she says with a dramatic roll of her eyes.

"They're old enough to come with us to the festival," their father said, crossing his arms, and trying his best to mimic their mother by cocking his hips to one side whilst sitting down, and giving her a raised eyebrow. "And I'm not old," he protested strongly, and Kanami couldn't help but smile amusingly at her father.

"They're _three_ ," their mother pointed out, looking unimpressed.

"We're three and a _half_ ," Sena whispered to her, as if she didn't know that already, but Kanami decided to entertain her brother by comically widening her eyes as she turned to face him, looking for all the world that she didn't even know they were even _three_.

"I was even't even a year old when _my_ parents brought me to the Hanami festival," their dad mentioned. "And I clearly remembered _you_ saying that every year you and okaa-sama would go to shrine to pray every year since you were born. Sena-kun and Kana-chan are _three_ and we've never even brought them _near_ a shrine even once. We even missed the Shichi-Go-San Festival for Kana-chan!" He retorted, voice particularly close to that of a whine.

Their mother nibbled on her bottom lip, looking conflicted at their father's words. Their mother casted both Kanami and Sena a concerned look. "...You're not letting go of this, are you, Shuuma?" She asked softly, gaze straying towards the ground.

Kanami and Sena watched as their father got off from the couch so that he could wrap his arms around their mother, giving her a comforting hug—and Kanami couldn't help but go _awwww_ in her head, because c'mon, that was just cute to see. She may have preferred action-genred anime, but she'd always been a sucker for the romantic ones as well, so seeing a romantic scene playing out before her was just _platinum_. "Nothing bad will happen to the kids, dear," their father said, rubbing circles on their mother's back. "We'll each guard one, okay? And look, if it makes you feel any better, I'll buy them some leashes, okay? To make sure we don't lose them to the crowd," he said.

Kanami jolted at that—leash? what leash? WERE THEY GONNA PUT COLLARS AROUND THEM LIKE DOGS OR SOMETHING?—and she shot a crazy look towards her parents when she saw their mother return the embrace and nod her head, as if appeased by their father's idea. She turned to look at Sena, but the kid was just _smiling,_ and Kanami wondered why the hell was he smiling when they were going to be _leashed like an animal_ , until she remembered that he was just _three_ and probably didn't even understand what the word leash even meant.

"Okay fine," their mother said, sighing loudly as she pulled away from their embrace. "But we're not going to that festival until you buy the kids some leashes," she said, and their father beamed brightly at their mother.

"I already know where to get them. I can buy a pair tomorrow after I get off from work, and maybe this Monday we can go see the azaleas," he suggested. "The boss gave us an off that day," he added when he saw his wife look a little bit frazzled at the idea of him skipping work for the sake of flower viewing.

Their mother just nodded, looking pleased by their agreement, before she turned to walked over to Kanami and Sena who were still sitting on the carpeted floor, surrounded by lego blocks that their mother skillfully manuevered around. Once she was in front of us, she bent down to our height, her lips curled up into a bright smile that Kanami just _knows_ that their mother was happy that their father had managed to convince her to go to the festival. "Did you hear that?" Their mother asked them, and Sena happily clapped his hands.

"Pes-tibhal!" He proclaimed loudly, and Kanami bit down on her bottom lip to stop herself from bursting into hysterical laughter.

"It's festival," their mother corrects patiently, then repeats it again just for Sena's sake.

"Festival," Sena repeats, and he beams brightly when he sees the smile lighting up their mother's face.

"Yes, Sena-kun. Festival," their mother says as she picks him up by the armpits. "Isn't that exciting?" She asks him, planting a loud kiss on his cheek.

Expectedly, Sena shrieks out in a combination of disgust and laughter. "No! Yucky yucky, okaa-chan!"

"And we'll put you guys on leashes too! Isn't that fun, my little Sena-kun?" Their mother cooed, and Kanami couldn't resist the peals of laughter that escaped her when all Sena did was to blink cluelessly at their mother before he smiled widely, bobbing his head up and down in naive agreement.

* * *

Tuesday came sooner than Kanami had expected, and before she knew it they were already at their designated place after two train trips that lasted a little more than half an hour for both and a brief car drive. And, as promised, both she and Sena were wearing their leashes—which were apparently backpacks with leashes on them, thank Kami—and had their hands clasped together whilst she held onto their father's hand and Sena held onto their mother's.

"This is our stop, guys," their father says, armed with camera's that hanging from his neck. "Nezu Shrine! Where the Tsutsuji Festival is!" He announces brightly, and Kanami resists the urge to roll her eyes because this is the who-knows-what-nth time he's said it. "Let's go, let's go!" He says as he guides them towards the main gate where he then proceeds to hand the tickets he'd apparently pre-ordered.

"You planned this, didn't you?" Their mother says with a click of her tongue as they enter the shrine, and both Kanami and Sena take a moment to be dazzled by the large trees hovering over them from both sides, as well as the chirping of cicadas skillfully hidden within the foliage. When their father doesn't answer their mother's question, their mother merely huffs. "And what would happen if I didn't agree to this trip?"

"I'd have kidnapped the kids, lied that it's bring your kids to work day, and the three of us would be strolling about here," he replies, and yelps when his wife reaches over to smack him at the back of the head. "Hey! I was just joking! It's just a joke, i swear! I'd never lie to you, anata!" He says as he barely dodges another hit aimed at his head.

"Hmph!" Their mother huffs.

"Okaa-chan," Sena demands, pulling on her skirt. "What's that?" He asks, pointing at the big, Japanese arc way that's painted a bright yet dark red color.

Kanami feels like frothing at this moment—because _hey!_ She'd never thought she'd ever go to Japan, much less visit a _shrine_ or even come across any kind of ancient Japanese architecture—and she would've answered Sena's question if she didn't remember that she was supposed to be a clueless three-year old and most definitely not a teenager who'd been reincarnated as the twin of a main character of a supposedly popular sports anime and armed with a butt load of information that no three year old should know.

Curses.

"That's a _torii gate_ , Sena-kun," their mother explains.

"Big," Sena comments. "And pretty," he adds as an afterthought. "Can we get one?" He asks oh so innocently.

"No," their mother says firmly. "Torii gates belong to shinto shrines only," she says simply.

Having watched her fair share of supernatural-genred anime, Kanami knew all too well what the purpose for torii gates were: they were supposed to be the gate to the spiritual world, thus supposedly making Shinto shrines common grounds for spirits to loiter about. Feeling a shudder crawl up her spine, Kanami ceased any and all thoughts about ghosts and spirits as she began to feel goosebumps appear through the skin of her arms. Kanami just hopes that a spirit wasn't clinging to her or anything; spooky stuff were always one of the things that scared her the most.

"C'mon," their father encouraged them through the path that led them across an arc bridge made out pure stone with large green fences on both sides to keep any passengers from falling into the large pond underneath. "Look, Sena-kun, Kana-chan, _koi carps_!" Their father enthused as he began taking a few pictures with his camera, and Kanami had to steady herself by gripping the fence once she felt the leash on her backpack slightly lift her up from the ground.

"Kaa-chan, look, Kana-chan's flying!" Sena said in utter wonderment, pointing at his little sister who was struggling to get down.

"Shuuma! Stop taking pictures and look at your daughter!" Their mother rebuked as she helped Kanami down, all the whilst glaring at her husband who cheekily rubbed the back of his neck, the end of Kana's leash bounded tightly around his hand.

"Ahaha, sorry, got a little excited there," he said with a chuckle. "Sorry, Kana-chan. Otou-san won't forget about you again," he comforted, and Kanami inwardly raised an eyebrow at his words, not once believing him; nonetheless, she outwardly smiled at him and nodded obediently. "But look over there, a family of ducks," he said, pointing at family of ducks that were swimming across the pond that, to Kanami's eye, was slightly murky but that was probably just the color of the ground and not the water itself.

"Kawaii!" Sena cooed, and he struggled to outstretch his hands through the fence to touch once of the ducks, but their mother immediately pulled him away from it.

"No," their mother simply said to him, tapping Sena on the nose. "We don't touch the animals here. They might hurt you," she scolded him, and Kanami glanced back at the miniature lake—where the only animals she could see were the ducks, the koi carps, and small turtles swimming about, looking as harmful as a dandelion flower—and thought with a snort, _'yeah, Sena could eaten by these_ dangerous _animals with their sharp and pointy teeth and their beady black eyes that look like death itself.'_

She almost cracked herself up when their dad took a picture of them, but she maintained her ever innocent and devil may care smile as the flash went off.

"Now let's go see those azaleas!" Their father cheered, making Sena cheer loudly too; Kanami and her mother excused a pair of smiles as all four of them headed off.

* * *

There was only one word Kanami could use to describe the maze of bushes filled to the very brim of flowering azaleas in all colors ranging from purple to red and from pink to white; _beautiful_. She couldn't help but be starstrucked by the colorful flora as she and family strolled along the path between the almost magical scenery before her.

She'd thought since the beginning of the day that all she'd see very pretty flowers then go home satisfied and tired with the day; oh how wrong she was. For the first time in her entire life as Kanami, it was _her_ who tugged her family towards a particular bush, practically vibrating from where she stood as she pointed and beamed at the magnificent flowers.

And for the first time, Kanami _acted_ like the child she was supposed to be.

"Oooh, this one smells good!" She exclaimed as she leaned in forward to sniff the red-petaled azaleas with a crimson inner coating, but she didn't dare touch one. Their parents had been firm and strict to both she and Sena that picking any of the flowers here were _not allowed_ , and Kanami deduced that it most probably must be illegal to pluck off any of the flowers within this shrine.

"Let me smell 'em too!" Sena whined as he wrestled himself out of their father's hold; they'd switched leash-holders just a while ago after her mother nearly had another panic attack when Kanami was lifted off of the ground when her father tried to take a picture of the flowering tree right above them, and had demanded that _she'd_ be the one to take care of Kanami whilst their father was to take care of Sena, who seemed to enjoy being lifted off of the ground more than Kanami did. "You're right, Kana-chan! It _does_ smell good!" He exclaimed and patted a flower before pulling away right before their parents could see him doing so.

( _Amelia remembers this smell. The smell of lilies with the undertones of nutmeg; it reminds her of that one scented bookmark someone had anonymously slipped into her locker._ )

Kanami simply leaned her head against Sena's shoulder once he was close enough to her, which made him unconsciously hook his arm around hers. Kanami sighed deeply, relaxing against the warmth of her brother, and she simply smiled, quietly listening to the beginnings of her older brother's ramblings as she started to feel a little drowsy from having to wake up so early in the morning because of another nightmare as well as because of their long trip .

* * *

She's not pouting. Nu-uh. No way. Kanami is _most definitely **not**_ pouting, and that is freaking _final_.

"Kana-chan, stop pouting. You might get wrinkles on your pretty face," their mother chides her as she helps her remove her shoes. "I know you're upset that you fell asleep and missed half of the festival, but there's always next time," she tries to comfort Kanami, who's still, you know, _pouting_ _,_ blast it all.

"I'm not pouting," Kanami stubbornly denies.

"What's pouting?" Sena asks with a tilt of his head.

"It looks like this," their father says and demonstrates it by sticking out his bottom lip and furrowing his eyebrows deeply.

Sena stares up at their father for a moment, before returning his gaze back to his little sister. "Kana-chan," he says softly, and Kanami can just _hear_ the amusement in his tone. "You're pouting," he says it as if he's telling her she has an incurable disease, which just makes Kanami frown even _harder_.

"I'm not pouting!" She complains as she stomps into the living room. The sound of her family's laughter echoing behind her only makes her blush grow deeper.

Kanami can't believe that she'd _fallen asleep_ in the middle of the festival, and she's utterly embarrassed by the fact that she just _did_ and had to be carried around by their mother for the rest of the day. It doesn't help the fact that the only time she'd woken up was when they'd just arrived home. It's not like she's mad or anything at her family—it's not their fault that her brain's all whacked up and the nightmares keep her from getting a good night's sleep—but she's...well, _disappointed_ , because this'd been her first festival and she'd been so excited to spend the whole day just, well, festival-ing with her entire family.

And she's really frustrated that today hadn't gone exactly as she'd planned.

 _'I really wanted to buy some azalea sprouts too...'_ Kanami thinks, as she remembers the stall in front of Nezu shrine where an elderly couple were selling azalea seeds and sprouts. _'Maybe next them,'_ she thinks hopefully right before she buries her face into a nearby pillow and unleashes a frustrated scream that's easily muffled.

* * *

May comes and goes, as does the summer heat. June come in with all its glory, and Kanami wonders to herself why she even bothers keeping track of the days because every day practically passes by as a blur to her, since for the past year life for her and Sena is one big schedule that _never_ has delays, sans special occasions and the Azalea Festival that they'd gone off to; to the point that both she and Sena know what will happen once the day of the week has been told, and is _never_ wrong about what happens that day.

On Mondays and Fridays, Hitomi-obasan and Karin would come over to their house for their scheduled visit. _Usually,_ Karin would bring some of her toys with her: most of which were porcelain— _porcelain, for Kami's sake!_ —dolls dressed in lavish kimonos that Kanami and Sena can both agree that they are both too scared to touch in fear of breaking it, but occasionally Karin brings with her some of her children's books that, to the amazement of both Kanami and Sena, are _pop-up_.

Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays were the days Asuka-obasan and Mamori would come over. Mamori would always tell them about her time in preschool, enthralling Sena with the different stories that her homeroom adviser would tell daily, and amusing Kanami with her enthusiasm and jubilee. Sometimes, Mamori with bring a few of her books with her, which Kanami was all too happy to place her undivided attention on as Mamori and Sena continued to entertain one another.

Wednesdays and Sundays were the only days she and Sena could spend with their family, and Kanami took full advantage of those days to get Sena up and running in their backyard to hopefully increase his stamina for the future, learn how to crochet from her mother with a plastic crochet hook, and pestering her father when's the next time they could go to a festival.

But there are little things that Kanami notices over the transmission into the month of June. They're little things, really, that aren't really all that noticeable unless you _really_ look and see that the people around you are _changing_ bit by bit. Like how her father is starting to squint whenever he's watching T.V. or reading the newspaper—a sign that he'll be getting glasses soon enough. Amelia's seen enough kids go through the same symptoms before they come to school with glasses on their face—and how her mother's starting to frown at the new layer of fat on her stomach.

But it's her twin brother and two friends who makes Kanami proud of. Sena's starting to learn how to read on his own now, even though he always asks her what this character stands for and what it sounds like, and he's always ooh-ing and ah-ing at her when she answers him—it's freaking adorable, and Kanami would bet that no cute animal video can compare to the kawaii-ness and moe-ness of her _onii-chan_.

For Mamori and Karin, the change is in their personality, in how they carry themselves, and in how they're starting to see themselves in their current social life. Mamori's starting to learn that there's nothing really wrong with her, sans her straightforwardness, and that the only words that should matter to her are those that directly come from the people who value her for herself; whereas Karin's starting to grasp how to socialize with other people by experimenting and practicing with both her and her brother. Kanami notices how Mamori's starting to hold her head up a little bit higher than before, back a little bit straighter, and a spark of _something_ in her eyes; in Karin, it's much more subtle, but Kanami sees it pretty quickly when, for the first time, Karin's gaze doesn't stray to the ground when she's talking with her or with Sena, instead the other girl looks at them in the eye without so much as a second thought.

But it's how they wear their hair that's the biggest change in them. Every time she visits, without fail, Karin wears her blonde hair in a loose and messy braid that Kanami offers to fix every time—Kanami does this because she's weird like that. That, and, well, seeing people struggle with their hair getting in their faces had always bothered her for some strange and inane reason. Mamori, on the other hand, has taken hers and Sena's words to heart, and is starting to appreciate the unique color that her hair is by allowing to grow past her shoulders.

It's a weird sight to Kanami—Mamori with long hair, she means, because she's only ever seen the future team manager of the Deimon Devilbats with her signature bob-styled hair—but Kanami can't really say it doesn't suit her because it _does_. Long hair plus Anezaki Mamori is a good combination, and just because Kanami's worried that she might've changed something in the future for the worse, it doesn't mean that she'll just go right up to Mamori and lie that she looks hideous just so that she could hopefully maintain the accurate timeline of Eyeshield 21.

Kanami just can't do that—because: 1) Mamori's her friend, and, according to Sena, you don't hurt friends; and 2) Even if Kanami _did_ tell Mamori that she looks hideous with longer hair, it doesn't mean that the accurate and correct timeline for Eyeshield 21 will ever revert back to the original one because: a) Kanami's already fucked things up by simply _existing_ ; b) Mamori might feel betrayed that Kanami'd said something so insensitive in her transformation to the Anezaki Mamori that Kanami knows with a few tweaks here and there, of couse, which in turn might damage her character in the future; and c) Kanami'd rather commit seppuku than ruin her friendship with the daughter of one of her mother's closest friends, because if she did, then that would make her the sole receiver of her mother's disappointed looks.

Kami, she's getting a headache with all this analyzing and thinking.

"Kana-chan! Are you even listening to me?" Mamori demands loudly and when Kanami turns to face her, she can clearly see the indignation on the physically older girl's face.

"Hahaha, sorry, sorry. I was just thinking about something," Kanami apologizes with a light-hearted laugh. "What were you talking about again?" She asks.

"If we want to be friends with _kappas_ ," Mamori answers helpfully, and Kanami wonders how the fuck a lesson about learning how to read Hiragana became a conversation about befriending a mythical creature whose hobby is to drag people to their deaths via drowning them. Oh, and wrestling. Don't forget about their love of wrestling too.

"Why?" Kanami asks, mystified.

"So that the kappas will help us when we're in trouble!" Mamori says. "Okaa-chan told me that if we become friends with a kappa, they'll teach us all sorts of things!" She beams with a clap. "Oh, and they won't eat us too," she adds.

"E-EH?!" Sena bursts out loud, a look of shock and complete fear on his face. "K-Kappas c-c-can eat us?" He asks, fearfully looking outside of the window in case there were any kappas roaming around.

"Yeah!" Mamori says, and she says it so _excitedly_ that Kanami can't help but snort. "Okaa-chan said that they like the taste of children since we taste good," she says thoughtfully.

Sena whimpers as he then proceeds to glue himself to Kanami's side.

Feeling a bit silly and mischievous, Kanami wonders aloud, "I wonder what we taste like," then gives Sena a curious look that makes him cry out and back away from her. "I'm just kidding, Sena," she says with a smile to her trembling older brother, who slumped in relief.

"Thank goodness," Sena said as he returned to gluing himself to his sister's side.

"So what should we do?" Mamori pipes up. "Make friends with kappas or not?" She asks, before adding, "Because I think it's a good thing if we become friends with kappas."

"I second the motion then," Kanami says, and internally sighs when she receives two blank looks from her brother and friend. "I mean I agree. I don't want to be eaten by anyone. Maybe not _yet_ , anyways," she adds as an afterthought, resisting the temptation to creepily giggle. _'They're just kids, Kanami,'_ she thinks to herself. _'You shouldn't even be making dirty jokes in the first place, you perverted girl.'_

"I guess we can make friends with them..." Sena says unsurely with a deep frown.

"Okay!" Mamori beams with a clap of her hands. "Then it's decided! We'll become friends with them!" She says as she stands up, stroking down the creases in her ungodly sunny yellow dress that makes Kanami's eyes _burn_. "Let's go ask Mihae-baachan to cut up some cucumbers to that we could leave them out for the kappas!" She says, and Sena, ever the obedient puppy, follows after Mamori to the living room where their mothers are at.

Kanami just stares at their back, with a little content smile on her face.


End file.
